


Where Do We Go From Here?

by CookieDoughMe



Category: Haven (TV)
Genre: A Buffy quote for a title, Alternative ending to season three, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gloria Verrano mentioned, Jean Mitchell mentioned, Jordan McKee mentioned, M/M, Nuke with a Threegulls feel, Rebecca Rafferty - Freeform, Rosemary mentioned, Some angst, This is Duke/Nathan with a Duke/Nathan/Audrey angle to it, This starts off very Nathan/Duke heavy and then other characters gradually get introduced over time, Threegulls that might have been, Vickie Dutton mentioned, a little fluff, alternating pov, finding each other in grief, reference to Nathan's tattoo and Vanessa's vision, some smut
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-13
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:21:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 28
Words: 29,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24699745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CookieDoughMe/pseuds/CookieDoughMe
Summary: Inspired partly bymy first ever ficand prompted bythis tumblr ask, this is set after an alternative season 3 which pulls in a bit of season 4 plot too, but in which Audrey goes into the Barn with slightly less drama, no one gets shot and the 27 year cycle doesn't get disrupted.This is basically Nathan and Duke dealing with the emotional fall-out of Audrey leaving. Through their grief for her they find each other, and start to build a life together as they prepare for the time when Haven will once again be beset by impossible disasters and visited by a stranger with the face of the woman they love."We're always going to miss her. But I'm really glad you're here Duke."-Also, check outthis lovely aesthetic for this ficfrom the wonderfulmythoughtsaretroubled
Relationships: Duke Crocker/Nathan Wuornos
Comments: 72
Kudos: 36





	1. Chapter 1

Nathan sat down heavily in front of the paperwork he should have finished yesterday. It was topped with this morning's copy of the Haven Herald that Laverne had left there for him. The date on the paper caught his eye; it was three months to the day since Audrey had left them. Three months since she had said she was going outside for some air and had never come back.

They had been talking, Nathan, Audrey and Duke, in The Grey Gull after closing, about a new piece of information that suggested the only way for Audrey to avoid leaving in the Barn the next day was for her to kill the one person she loved most in the world. They had debated whether it was true, they had debated how it would work, they had debated what would happen if Audrey did neither of these things and simply spent the day at home. They had danced around every angle of it for ages until finally there was no way left to avoid the central question, the question neither of them were brave enough to put into words;  _ Audrey, who do you love? _

She had answered it though, in her frustration with the whole concept. "How am I supposed to choose between a town I love and a person? How am I supposed to decide to murder someone when I don't even know exactly what that will do? And what if there isn't one person I love at all, but two?" She had been frustrated, sad, angry and scared but her voice had softened then as she looked at him and Duke. The sentiment wasn’t exactly unexpected, but hearing it spoken out loud was still something of a surprise, and neither of them had known what to say. So when she announced a moment later that she needed some air they had let her go.

Unable in that moment to deal with all of the complicated emotional consequences, Nathan had focused instead on what this meant for their theory. Would she have to choose between them? Or would she have to kill both of them if the Troubles were to end? Would they have to both die at exactly the same time for it to work? How sure could they be that the plan would still work at all with two? He couldn't bear the thought of Audey left alone with two dead bodies and the Troubles still in full swing. He shied away from thinking about what it would be like to be the one who was left if she chose to kill the other. And what if then the Troubles still didn't end and she went into the Barn after all? He felt without thinking about it that being the only one left might almost be the hardest of all.

He'd turned to Duke to start to try and express some of this but that was when they heard the crunch of the gravel outside as Audrey drove off. In their surprise it took them a moment to gather their wits and get themselves into the bronco to follow her. By then she had enough of a head start that all they ever saw of her again was the moonlight catching her hair as she stepped through the door into the Barn.

They ran up to it together, this solid wooden building that was in fact nothing of the sort. They called for her, kicked and pulled at the door but they couldn't get it open and nothing else happened. She was inside, the Barn was closed and then it started to fade from view until there was nothing left. She was gone.

"Should've had another day," said Nathan, stunned.

Duke looked at his watch. "It's nearly two in the morning. It's tomorrow."

They had stood there looking at an empty patch of ground for a while until it became painfully clear there was nothing for them to do. In Audrey's car they'd found a hastily-scribbled note;  _ 'I'm sorry. I love you both.' _

And now, Nathan saw the date on the copy of the Herald on his desk and remembered all of these details from three months ago, even as he tried not to think about them at all. The Troubles were gone and his sense of touch returned to him. His skin was no longer numb but instead it was hard for him to feel the tangle of emotions that left him with. He sighed, put the Herald to one side and started on the paperwork.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _Previously, in this fic:_ In an alternative ending to season three, Audrey has chosen to go into the Barn rather choose either of the men she loves. Three months later, they are still struggling to process what's happened.

The next day, Duke came by after lunch with a bag of pastries. They had maintained an uneasy truce in the last three months, both acutely aware that Audrey would not want them to fight. They even shared a drink in the Gull now and then. But now he was here with pastries in the middle of the day, which could definitely be classed as unusual.

Duke sat down on the sofa. "It's time," he said firmly.

"Time?" asked Nathan, peering into the bag from Rosemary's.

"Yes. We agreed at the memorial service that we would clear out her place together. We agreed we'd leave it a month. It's been two. It's time," Duke was firm in his melancholy.

On some level, Nathan knew he was right. Audrey's old apartment couldn't be left as it was forever. So far nothing had been touched and at some point that would start to get creepy. But he didn't want to go in there. The part of him that didn't know how to feel the emotions he would feel when he stepped inside didn't want to go. "Not today, I've got -”

"No you don't. I spoke to Laverne, I spoke to Dwight and Stan. There is absolutely nothing happening here right now that can't wait a few days." Duke was unapologetic even as he appeared to recognise the magnitude of what he was saying.

"You …?" Nathan began, his reaction somewhere between anger at Duke going behind his back to organise his work schedule for him, and laughter at the idea of Duke Crocker The Pirate scheming with a bunch of cops to get time with another one.

"Nate I'm sorry but I had to. It needs to be done and you need to face up to that. We agreed that we'd do it together so I …. I need you to come help me with this."

"But …" Nathan gestured helplessly around him, at the paperwork, the police radio, the station itself. 

"If anything urgent happens they'll know where to find you, OK? Bring your radio." Nathan knew he was right, but he still didn't want to move. "Laverne and the others have your cell as well right? They've got mine too, and the number for the Gull. They've got the number for, for the apartment. They know where we're going - they'll be able to find you if they need you."

Nathan sighed, recognising defeat. "You're not going to let this go are you?" he asked.

"No."

Nathan stood up and grabbed the pastries. "Come on then."


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _Previously, in this fic:_ Three months after Audrey went into the Barn and the Troubles went away, Duke has dragged Nathan out of the station to help him clear out Audrey's old apartment.

The journey over there was silent, morose and uncomfortably short. In no time at all they were climbing the stairs that Nathan had determinedly spent the last three months not looking at. And then Duke unlocked the door and they stepped inside.

For a long moment they stood there side by side, not moving. It was a small place, and Audrey hadn't gone out of her way to collect possessions, but still, it felt like a lot of stuff to go through.

"We should…" the word faded into a cough and Duke tried again. "We should start with the little things, easy stuff like food that's out of date, stuff that needs throwing away."

"Yeah," Nathan croaked out a reply, voicing sounding hoarse and overly loud in his ears.

Duke walked over to the kitchen and took a roll of bin bags out of a drawer, Nathan momentarily thrown by how easily he knew where to find them. "I cleared out the fridge a while ago," Duke told him. "Not that there was much in there besides Bailey's and cupcakes."

Nathan laughed, not knowing whether that was fact or a joke, but in any case it had the same effect of spurring him into action. He left the bag of pastries on the table and took one of the bin bags through to the bathroom, emptying the trash can and adding Audrey's toothbrush and almost empty tube of toothpaste to it. He looked through the cabinet and shelves, throwing out a few empty or almost-empty bottles of shampoo and shower gel, and then wandered back towards the kitchen. Throwing out stuff that needed throwing out wasn't so bad; he could almost pretend they were just doing Audrey a favour and tidying up before she got home. So far it felt easy enough but he knew that wouldn't last.

It hit him when he opened the closet full of clothes that she would never wear again. In 27 years she would be back, but it wouldn't be her and in any case these would likely be long out of fashion by then. He would be approaching retirement. With that realisation came the scent of her, woven through the fabric of her clothes and taking him back to moments they had walked together, talked together, hugged and kissed and … Abruptly he closed the closet door again and went to join Duke in the kitchen.

He found him staring at a mug, some kind of cartoon character on the side. "I was just remembering…" Duke trailed off.

"Yeah," agreed Nathan. "You should keep it," he realised.

Duke curled his fingers tight around the mug and for a moment Nathan thought he was going to hurl it across the room, but then he very carefully put it down on the table. "I don't…"

"Decide later," Nathan suggested after a moment. "Most of the crockery'll go to goodwill?" he said, a question that was more of a stated assumption. 

Duke nodded. "We'll need some boxes for it."

Nathan nodded back. Why hadn't he thought of that?

Duke looked over towards the closet where Nathan had been. "The clothes too?"

That helped Nathan feel a little better. Throwing all of the clothes in a bag and donating them would be easier than sorting through them one by one. He couldn't think of anyone he knew who might want to wear any of them. And even if he did, the thought of seeing someone else walking round town in Audrey's jacket was unpleasant at best. "Yeah. Though maybe, not here," he began.

Duke understood, nodded an agreement. "We'll drive down the coast a way."

Nathan walked over to the fireplace and the selection of ornaments and photos on the mantelpiece. Tucked behind a scented candle was a photo he didn't remember seeing before. Someone must have taken it when none of them were looking, and he realised suddenly it was at the Christmas in July party that he'd almost expected to become a Haven tradition. In the photo, he was handing Duke a beer as Duke passed him a bowl of chips and they laughed about some joke now lost to time. It was a pretty average party photo except for one thing: Audrey standing at the side of the room, watching them with such a look of adoration on her face he could hardly stand it.

He took it over to Duke who was flicking through a cookbook that Nathan thought might have been a gift from Claire. "Look at this," Nathan said.

"That Christmas party in summer."

"Yeah."

"The way she looked at you," Duke commented, reaching a finger towards the image of Audrey.

"Us," Nathan corrected him.

"Sure about that?" Duke asked with a self-deprecating smile.

"I am," replied Nathan firmly. He left it on the table in front of Duke and went back to the mantelpiece. There were more scented candles than he'd realised, he didn't think Audrey actually lit them very often. He picked one up to smell it and was assaulted by memories of an afternoon-turned-evening they had spent going over the details of some case or another. They had taken a break from the work to eat and share a bottle of wine and for a moment it had started to feel like a date. "I'll take these," he said, holding it up to Duke. "If you don't mind."

"Of course not. I think there's some boxes in the store room downstairs we can use to pack some of this stuff up. I'll be back in a minute." Duke paused in the doorway, "You'll still be here when I get back, right?"

"I'll be right here," Nathan assured him.

Nathan spent a few minutes separating out the candles he would keep from some other knickknacks he wasn't sure what to do with, and a few things that he put in the trash; an almost-empty pot of hand cream, a couple of pens that didn’t seem to work, a houseplant that he was fairly sure had been half-dead even before it had been left unattended for three months.

Duke came back with boxes and a stack of old copies of the Herald to use as packing paper, and they spent some fairly companionable silence eating pastries and packing up plates and bowls and cups to take to goodwill. As they cleared out the cupboards they found a few packets of snacks; chips and cookies and pretzels. Duke looked at the date on one; "These officially have to be eaten by tomorrow," he declared. He opened the bag of pretzels and offered it to Nathan, who hesitated for a moment. It felt a little surreal, eating the contents of a dead person's kitchen, but it was just a bag of pretzels, what else were they going to do with them?

The pretzels and the other snacks kept them going as they packed up the rest of the kitchen and the knickknacks from the mantelpiece and various other shelves around the place. Nathan took a box into the bathroom and filled it with unopened toiletries, leaving the room almost entirely empty. He lingered in there, reluctant for the next part because the only thing left was the bedroom, and her clothes. The things that would remind him most of her and the too-short time they'd spent together.

But he couldn't stay in the bathroom forever so eventually he added the box to the growing pile by the door and turned to find Duke looking through a different kind of box.

"Found this under the bed," Duke told him. “Some kind of keepsake box,” he added as Nathan joined him.

There were some more photos of that Christmas party, and of the Halloween party at the Herald before they’d had to leave to deal with a Trouble. There were notes and cards and letters; knickknacks in paper form. Nathan was a little surprised. He hadn’t thought Audrey was sentimental in the way that would make her want to keep these things. He picked up what looked like a booking receipt; the details for the trip she had taken to Colorado with Duke. He dropped it back into the box. “If I asked what happened between you in Colorado, would you tell me?” he asked.

To his surprise, Duke answered easily. “Just one kiss, that’s all. She didn’t want to hurt you. She said, there wasn’t enough time to sort it out if things went badly. She pulled away from both of us because she knew she might have to leave.”

Nathan wasn’t sure whether hearing this made him feel better or worse. He nodded an acknowledgement that he’d heard, and to distract himself from himself he shifted through the box some more, finding another photo of her and Duke, the camera perfectly capturing the look of adoration on his face.

“She wanted to remember you though,” Nathan said.

Duke shook his head. “I don’t think that’s what this is. It’s not just me; there’s photos of you too,” he pointed out, pulling one to the top of the pile as evidence. “But it’s not even just us, there’s all kinds of things in here, look.” He pulled out a clipping from the Herald; an article about one of the few cases her and Nathan had dealt with that had no Troubled connection to it at all. There was a detailed (and for once accurate) write up, and a photo of her and Nathan looking official and efficient. “I had nothing to do with any of this,” Duke pointed out. “And this is a letter from Julia, and an official one from the station confirming her transfer to Haven PD. I don’t think this is about Audrey remembering anything, I think it’s about demonstrating that she was here.” 

“Evidence that she existed,” added Nathan, realising that Duke was right.

“Did she think we’d forget her?” Duke wondered, sounding crestfallen.

“No, it’s more than that,” Nathan replied, sounding more sure than he felt. “It’s  _ evidence _ ; objective proof. Someone could find this in 50 or a hundred years and know she was here.”

Duke’s face cleared with understanding. “Or in 27 years; some future version of herself,” he realised.

Nathan nodded, feeling for a moment the impossibilty of it all. He reached towards another photo at the same time as Duke. Their fingers brushed over each other and in an instant the atmosphere changed, charged between them with possibilities they had occasionally danced around but had not so far acknowledged. The remembered version of Audrey in his head rolled her eyes at him as he veered away from acknowledging it again. “We should keep this safe.”

“You should take it,” Duke told him. “It’ll be safest at your place. A bar must be at higher risk of a break-in than the Chief of Police’s house, and there’s always an outside chance of a boat sinking.”

Nathan hesitated, feeling almost selfish if he took it home. “It could go to Vince and Dave, to add to the Herald’s archives,” he suggested.

“What so they can hide it away somewhere it’ll never be found, along with all the other secrets they never told us? No, you should take it,” Duke insisted firmly, pushing it towards him a little.

Nathan didn’t have any other objections to raise. He reached into a pocket and pulled out his wallet, and from that a scrap of paper. He unfolded it and laid it on top of the photos and letters to reveal Audrey’s final scribbled message to them;  _ I’m sorry. I love you both. _ Duke nodded at him, tears in his eyes, and closed the lid. He reached out and squeezed Nathan’s arm for a moment before he turned away.

Nathan put the box with the others that he was going to take home, and then turned back to find Duke standing in front of the open wardrobe. Nathan took a deep breath. It was the final thing left to sort through. He couldn’t put it off forever.

For a long moment they both just stood there, looking over the clothes they didn’t know what to do with. “I know we said we’d take it all to goodwill but, do we know anyone who might want any of it?” Duke wondered.

Nathan reached out and took out the first hanger he found; a light blue summer jacket. “Maybe Vickie?” he suggested.

“Yeah maybe. I don’t think all of this would fit her, but that might.” Duke pulled a scarf off the top shelf. It was warm and fluffy and he couldn’t ever remember seeing Audrey wear it. “I could see Gloria in this.”

“Yep,” Nathan agreed, surprised to realise he didn't mind the thought of other people wearing this stuff as much as he'd expected, not when it was people Audrey had known. Not when it was people who'd known her, people who missed her too.

They started sorting things into piles. Duke pulled out a warm winter coat. It was pleasantly heavy, a light brown colour and covered with multiple zippers and buttons. It was actually exactly the kind of thing that he would wear. He held it up against himself for size, but there was no way he could get into it. Nathan looked at him dubiously. “Vickie?” Duke suggested, and Nathan added to the pile of stuff they would offer to her.

Nathan reached into the closet for the next thing and pulled it off its hanger before he realised what it was - the blue dress that Audrey had worn at her surprise-birthday-party-gone-wrong up on Carpenter’s Knot. There were so many emotions mixed up with that night. She had looked amazing in that dress and now he felt the texture of it against his fingers for the first time, but he would never feel (or see, or hear) her again and the loss of it crashed against him anew. The loss and the frustration and the anger and the guilt all washed over him together and he closed his eyes as he choked on a sob. He felt Duke turn to him and that was a whole other layer of guilt and frustration and complicated feelings that he hadn’t worked through and suddenly it was just All Too Much. 

He sank to the floor, the dress clutched in his hand as he cried, more aware than he had been at any time in the last three months of the feel of the tears running down his face. After a moment Duke joined him on the floor, reaching a hand out to his shoulder, “Nate?” Nathan flinched at the unexpected touch, then after a moment turned into it, clinging on to Duke as he sobbed, shoulders shaking with the force of his grief.

“I’m so sorry Duke,” he managed in gasps between the sobs that would leave his eyes red and his throat raw, “I did everything wrong.” 

Duke wrapped his arms around Nathan, hugging back as he replied, “Well … not  _ everything _ .”

Nathan appreciated the effort at humour but it fell flat as Duke’s voiced cracked, and then Duke was crying too. While Nathan wept, angry at himself as much as anything else, Duke’s tears fell silently, mourning too many things to count. They clung to each other as they grieved for a woman who was not technically dead, huddled on the floor surrounded by piles of her clothes she would never see again.

Nathan had no idea how long he cried for, or how long they stayed there afterwards, but it must have been a while because he felt the stiffness in his legs when Duke eventually pulled them both up and over to the bed so they could sit on something soft instead of the cold hard floor.

Nathan sat hunched over the dress now scrunched in his hands and soggy with tears. 

“She looked nice in that dress,” Duke said softly.

“Yeah. And … I can feel it now but also … the smell of her … in all these clothes. Perfume or detergent or … I don’t know but …” He brought the dress up to his face to smell it; yes, it was her, and a scent always brought back so many memories. “Is that creepy?” he asked Duke, not looking at him, afraid the answer would be yes.

“Nah. I know what you mean,” Duke replied. He flopped backwards so he was lying across the bed and reached out to pull the pillow closer to him. 

“I’m glad you’re here Duke,” Nathan offered, still looking down at his hands.

“Yeah, you too.”

“Sorry we fought so much. Know a lot of that was my fault.”

“I’m sorry too. I know that not all of it was,” Duke added after a moment.

Nathan nodded. They could spend days and days analysing the rights and wrongs of a hundred different conversations, but that acknowledgement from both of them was probably all that was really needed. They had both made mistakes, they had both hurt the other, they were both still here. Those were the important facts. They both still cared.

Nathan made a deliberate effort to uncurl the fingers that were still buried in blue fabric. He stood up and found the hanger for the dress. He tried to smooth it out but the crinkles he’d made were not going away that easily. “Might have ruined this,” he admitted.

“Nah,” Duke said again from his position on the bed. “Take it to be dry cleaned; Landen will sort it out.”

Nathan put the dress in a pile of its own, surprised by how much better he felt for the release of tears. He turned back to the wardrobe. There were only a few things left for them to look at. They could clear the closet out now and then move all the boxes another time. “Come on, let’s finish this, do the rest tomorrow,” he suggested. He stepped back over to the bed and held out a hand to help Duke up.

“Yeah,” Duke agreed, a little wearily. He put the pillow back in its place and looked up to take Nathan’s hand but then he froze, eyes fixed on the inside of Nathan’s forearm.

For a moment Nathan was puzzled, then he realised; his sweater was pulled back enough so that his tattoo was on show, and now his arm was reaching towards Duke, just like in Vanessa’s vision of how he died. “Shit, sorry,” he pulled his hand back and pulled his sweater back down his arm. “Gonna look at getting it removed. Or covered up or, something.”

Duke stood up. “That would be a nice gesture. But I was just wondering whether the last thing I see before I die is necessarily the thing that kills me. How could a vision actually be sure of the cause of death? The hand Vanessa saw, it could be someone trying to make me comfortable in my old age, it could be someone trying to help me breathe. It could be someone offering me a hand to stand up.”

Nathan blinked at him, stunned by the possibility. “I hope so. I never really wanted you dead Duke. I was just …” Nathan shook his head.

“Yeah. I don't think I ever really believed you actually wanted to kill me,” Duke sighed at the impossibility of going back and making the last few years better. “What's done is done. No changing it now and Audrey wouldn't want us to fight. Let’s go through these and then we’re going to work our way through some of that bourbon,” he finished with feeling.

Nathan nodded, beyond grateful at this acceptance that he wasn't sure he deserved. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _Previously, in this fic:_ Prompted by the emotional experience of clearing out Audrey's apartment, Duke and Nathan have taken some first steps in acknowledging and talking about their feelings for her, and for each other.

A few hours later, the closet was empty, the fire was lit and they were making fairly solid progress through the bottle of bourbon that Duke had found in the corner of the kitchen. They had simply sat and drank for a while, then turned to stories and memories of Audrey, both funny and painful, for a while before returning to drinking again. What had started as a practical clearing-out session now felt more like a wake, Nathan thought as he let his head fall back against the sofa with a dull thump. He was tired and warm and the alcohol was making him fuzzy. He was aware of Duke beside him staring into the fire, and for a while everything was quiet. 

“We need to make sure we don’t turn into Vince and Dave," Duke announced suddenly. 

“What?” Nathan mumbled, fairly sure that didn’t make sense.

“When she … when the Troubles start up again, another woman will arrive with them and you’ll be Chief of Police and I’ll be proprietor of the best restaurant around and once she realises the kind of things that happen here she’ll ask us about this place. And I don’t know whether we tell her everything about Audrey right away but … we can’t hide useful information the way Vince and Dave did.”

“Oh. Yeah OK.” That actually did make sense.

“We know how the Troubles work now, right? There’s no reason the next person should have to learn everything from scratch.”

“Yeah!” replied Nathan, sitting upright again with a sudden realisation. “We could … prepare.”

Duke turned to him, surprised. 

“We’ve got 27 years to get ready. Some Troubles are easier to manage when the Troubled person knows how they work. So we make sure they know. We make sure they tell their kids.”

Duke tapped him on the knee, as he realised the full potential of it as well. “Yes! And we could get all the information together, all the evidence like that box, organised so that there’s a resource for her if something happens to us.”

“Careful, that was almost cop talk,” Nathan smiled at him.

But Duke barely noticed the jibe, caught up as he was in the possibilities. He rested his hand on Nathan’s knee as he spoke. “We can’t tell her everything the moment she gets here; no one would believe all of that at once. But once she’s seen a few Troubles at work?”

“Yeah. Sarah believed us,” Nathan pointed out, trying not to be too distracted by the hand-shape patch of warmth on his leg.

“We could really help her. We could make sure that next time … that next time it’s easier for her.”

Nathan didn’t think he’d ever heard Duke sound so hopeful. He put his hand on top of Duke’s. “We will,” he promised.

They toasted their whiskey glasses then and emptied them. Duke reached towards the bottle which was now close to empty as well. “Oh man did we drink all of this? There’s no way we can drive home. And it’s late,” he added, peering at his watch.

Nathan nodded to the first sentence, shook his head to the second and made himself feel spun out in the process. He flopped back against the sofa again. “Here’s good. Comfy here.”

Duke looked at him for a long moment. “I am not sleeping in an armchair when there is a perfectly good bed just over there… there,” he corrected himself, turning around and squinting to make sure he was pointing in the right direction.

“‘K,” mumbled Nathan.

“And neither are you. You’ll wake up with your neck all …” Nathan cracked open an eye in the pause Duke left and saw him miming his head on one side and should up by his ear, face twisted up to match, “... and now you’ll be able to feel it and you’ll be extra grumpy and hungover and I am not dealing with that when we have boxes to move.”

Nathan closed his eye again. “Comfy here,” he protested, then realised belatedly that he was much more drunk than he really should be, and that Duke was probably right on all counts.

“Nope,” said Duke. He stood up and reached for Nathan’s hand, pulling him along with him until they reached the bed where they both collapsed on to it at an odd angle. “Take your shoes off,” ordered Duke, pulling awkwardly at his own. “I do not want to get kicked in the shins by your shoes.”

Nathan made a show of reluctantly sitting up to push off his shoes, then flopped back down on the bed at a slightly more traditional angle.

There was a moment where he was aware of Duke frowning at him. "Ah close enough," muttered Duke, but Nathan was already half asleep.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _Previously, in this fic:_ Duke and Nathan had an emotional conversation clearing our Audrey's apartment, drank a little too much alcohol and fell asleep in what used to be her bed.

Nathan woke slowly, to the thud of a dull headache and the distraction of an unpleasant taste at the back of his mouth. He knew without even opening his eyes that he wasn't at home; the light was all wrong and his pillows weren't this soft. He'd been dreaming of Audrey and it seemed like she'd followed him into reality, he was surrounded by the smell of her. As he shifted his head on the pillow he remembered. The reason he felt so close to Audrey was because he was in her bed (or at least, the bed that had been hers). And so, presumably, was Duke. 

With his senses no longer dulled by alcohol, that suddenly seemed to Nathan like a very precarious situation. Over the last three months (or the last 30 years) they had occasionally danced around the implication that there might be … something between them. Some Thing that Nathan didn't know how to process or deal with. Some Thing that was hard to name but that, he reluctantly realised, might have the potential to offer them some small measure of comfort in their grief. Some Thing that might be thrown into a sudden and unavoidable prominence by the fact that they were currently lying next to each other in the same bed.

He shifted a little further onto his side and cautiously opened an eye. Duke was lying next to him, apparently asleep, his face mere inches away. Nathan's heart did a complicated flip in his chest; a mix of fear, excitement and fondness as he tried to sort through his thoughts in this moment and the emotional reaction that face generated in him. As he watched Duke sleep he realised that at the top of of those thoughts and feelings was a simple,  _ 'Don't go _ ,' a desire for a closeness and the connection that they had both pushed away from in the past.

"Duke," Nathan whispered, so softly it could not have possibly woken anyone.

Duke's eyes fluttered open right away. "Hey Nate," he replied in much the same tone.

They looked at each other and Nathan wanted to say something but he had no idea what. "You were awake?" he heard himself ask.

"So were you," Duke pointed out.

So there it was: they had both woken up in bed inches away from the other and they had both stayed exactly where they were. There wasn't much hiding from it any more, whatever exactly the unacknowledged Thing was, it was no longer unacknowledged. "I really am sorry Duke," Nathan offered.

"The past is done," replied Duke, not so much an acceptance of the apology as a challenge to make that regret  _ mean _ something now.

Nathan nodded thoughtfully. "Yeah. You're right. Were right yesterday when you dragged me down here." He winced at the memory. "I made it such hard work for you."

"You just needed a little help."

_ I needed you _ , he thought. But didn't quite manage to say that yet. "Thanks," he said instead. "We're always going to miss her. But I'm really glad you're here Duke."

"Glad that you've got someone else who misses her? Or glad that it's me?" Duke's eyes were searching as he said it, flicking between Nathan's eyes as though hoping he could see behind them to the thoughts that lay within. 

Nathan hesitated. Somehow the simplest answer ( _ It's always been you, Duke _ ) felt the hardest to say. "Remember when I lost my Trouble for a day?"

Duke frowned, confused by the apparent change in topic. "Of course."

"Biggest regret when it came back was I hadn't spent more time with you. Hadn't …" Nathan reached his hand up to rest on Duke's shoulder. Duke's eyes were wide, waiting for the rest of a sentence Nathan wasn't sure he had. What did he want to say? Hugged? Touched? Kissed? He moved his hand from shoulder to face, fingers skimming Duke's cheekbone as he brushed a strand of hair out of the way.

"Hadn't …?" Duke asked, in a voice so soft and small that Nathan barely heard him, only sure of what the word had been from the shape his mouth made.

Suddenly Nathan wondered what he was waiting for. He pushed forward to bring his face closer to Duke's, lips brushing lips in a touch almost as soft and brief as Duke's question. He moved half the way back and looked up from Duke's lips to his eyes, waiting for a reaction, giving Duke a chance to back away and brush the whole thing off as a misunderstanding. He didn't do that though, he leaned forward to kiss him back, soft and tender and for just a fraction longer. Gradually, their kisses grew deeper, gentle lips pressing more tightly to each other, tongues softly exploring. It was sensual, it was tender, it was emotional and close, and Nathan almost lost himself completely in his first kiss in years where he could actually feel everything.

Gradually, softly, Duke pulled away and they smiled at each other. “So,” Duke said.

“So,” Nathan echoed.

“That’s a thing.”

“Can we do that again?”

Duke laughed in delight, a bright sound that sparkled off the walls. For an answer he pressed his lips to Nathan’s again, soft and searching, sensuous and slow. “We …” Duke began between kisses, “... can ... “ his tongue ran over Nathan’s and he felt the spike of pleasure right down to his toes “... do this …” Duke pushed the kiss a little deeper, their mouths full of each other, “... absolutely …” kiss after kiss after soft, sensation-filled kiss “...  _ any  _ time you like.”

Eventually though, that kiss ended too, and Nathan reached his hand to Duke’s face again, tracing fingertips lightly over cheekbones, Duke relaxing into the touch like a sleepy cat. 

"What do you think she'd say if she could see us now?" Duke asked after a while.

Nathan’s short huff of a laugh was not as bitter as it would have been 24 hours ago. "What took you so long?" he suggested.

Duke agreed. “She’d be knocking our heads together.”

“Probably literally.”

“Asking if she could watch,” Duke suggested, half-joking.

“Asking if she could join in,” replied Nathan, a little wistful.

There was a little pause then, after which Duke suggested, “I suppose, we don’t know exactly how the Barn works, or when it changes who she is. She could be in there, keeping an eye on the town for 27 years until she becomes someone else. She could be looking down on us, watching from some … other dimension or whatever it is. She could be watching us right now.” And just like that, the atmosphere shifted up a gear. As they kissed again the press of their lips moved from gentle to soft, to sensuous, to hungry, to passionate to heated. They pushed their bodies closer together, Nathan suddenly acutely aware of how close they were to each other and again of the fact they were not only in bed together but in Audrey’s bed, surrounded by her as much as they would ever be again. Perhaps it was morbid of him, he thought, but she was as much a part of their relationship as either of them were, even if she wasn’t here. It should have been painful to imagine her watching them - in fact it was painful, acutely so - but it was also what had brought them together and the thought of how she might watch them, the look on her face, how she might join in; it heightened everything because he knew that Duke felt the same.

He pulled their hips close together and reached his hands round Duke’s waist to push up his ribs, palms pressed tight against warm and vital skin. So many times they had touched over the last few years in one way or another; but it had always been hollow. No warmth, no pressure, no way of even sensing Duke was alive unless he could see or hear him moving. Now it could not be more different. He felt Duke’s ribs move on an urgent breath. He felt the warm of his skin, the pulse of vibrant life run through him. They were pressed tight together from lips to tongue to chest to hips, even their legs and feet tangled together but suddenly it was nowhere near close enough, and Nathan pulled at Duke’s t-shirt, pushing it over his head, Duke willingly throwing it to one side and reaching forward hungrily to do the same with Nathan’s sweater. For a moment they simply pulled at clothes, wriggling out of jeans and throwing underwear and socks to the floor. 

In the process the bed clothes got thrown aside and neither of them reached for them, taking the opportunity to look each other over instead. It wasn’t that he didn’t know what Duke looked like, because he had seen most of this before, but it was still a beautiful sight he wanted to soak up. For all that that was the case though, he wanted to feel him more, and he soon pulled them back together again, literally gasping at the sensation as they pressed their naked bodies together, his breath coming ragged even though they were hardly moving.

“Nate?” Duke asked softly. “Alright?”

“Good. Just … so much sensation it’s … a lot.”

“Right. After your Trouble, I guess it’s a bit overwhelming. You want to slow it down?”

Nathan shook his head. He really didn’t. “No.” He shook his head again for emphasis, wanting to explain some more, but not really knowing what he wanted to say and certainly not finding any other words. “No,” he repeated, turning it into something like a plea.

Duke rolled them carefully to one side so that Nathan lay on his back and Duke covered his body with his. They kissed again, Duke’s kiss and the weight of him pressing Nathan firmly down into the bed. He was trapped between the mattress that smelled of Audrey and the warm, heavy body that was Duke. He was enveloped in sensation and he gave himself over to it, kissing back hard and thinking of nothing else. 

And then, Duke started to move. Shifting slowly over him, hips rocking gently, their erections pressed against each other and between their stomachs. It shouldn’t have been enough to bring a grown man as close to orgasm as he soon felt, but he didn’t have the time or the spare brain power to think about that right now. The Troubles had deprived him of any sensation at all for so long, with only one brief respite and Audrey’s occasional touches and kisses to break up the unendingly numb void. This all-over sensation he was feeling right now? It had been years since anything like this and now here he was with  _ Duke _ . Duke Crocker’s skin pressed to his, Duke Crocker’s warm, firm body pulsing over his own, and all of his under-used nerve endings were on fire in the best possible way.

His orgasm crept up on him, this bright white light of pleasure that blocked out everything else. He wasn’t even sure if he was still kissing back or if he called out or really of anything at all except the pleasure and the fact that it was Duke giving it to him. The touch and the smell and the sound of Duke Crocker that came back to his full awareness as the pulses of ecstasy faded away and he opened his eyes again.

“Alright?” asked Duke.

Nathan nodded, not feeling capable of forming words. He kissed him instead, trying to communicate his feelings with the press of his tongue. He felt Duke hard against his hip and reached down to curl his fingers around Duke’s cock, relishing the feel of it against his palm; another new sensation as Duke breathed against his neck.

“Nate,” Duke whispered. He pushed himself up a little way away from Nathan’s body so that Nathan’s hand and arm had more room to move. Nathan moved a little faster, brought his other hand to cup Duke’s balls and then watched the beautiful face above him as Duke fell apart in his hands. Duke shuddered over him, almost shaking with the effort and concentration of holding himself in place above Nathan, not wanting to move for the break in pleasure that would have meant. And then his orgasm hit too; sudden and loud, Nathan mesmerised by the view. 

Duke collapsed back down on top of him, the two of them a warm and happy, sticky mess. Nathan shifted him gently to the side a little, the weight almost too much now, and wrapped his arms tight around Duke’s back, wanting to make it clear he wasn’t trying to move him away. Duke squeezed back, and then snuggled up against him, head on Nathan’s shoulder.

It was a while before either of them spoke, then Duke broke the silence. "We're always going to miss her, aren't we?" he said, sounding forlorn. 

"Yeah," agreed Nathan. "But, maybe she'll always be with us as well. Watching over us. You were right last night," he added. "About having 27 years to prepare. Time to collate all the information, get organised, research, investigate.”

“Oh no,” replied Duke, crestfallen. “Now you’ve made it sound like detective work.”

“Well it is detective work. A lot of detective work. Hundreds of partially solved cases going back hundreds of years if we want to understand everything.”

“Pffft. Well you can do the detectiving. I thought I’d start with Vince and Dave. Get them to hand over all of their archives. Get them to tell us anything else they haven’t shared yet.”

Nathan turned to look at Duke and just about managed to keep a straight face as he said, “I don’t know how to break this to you Duke, but that sounds exactly like detective work to me.”

Duke huffed at him and threw a pillow at him for good measure. Nathan yelped and fought back, pushing Duke over onto his back and stopping the developing pillow fight with a kiss.

“You really think they’ll hand over all their archives and papers?" he asked when they pulled apart again. "Where will you put them? Or are you going for access to the Herald offices?”

“Those are reasonable and insightful questions which it is too early to answer just now. I need coffee. And we need to finish sorting this place out before we start anything else.”

Nathan nodded and shifted off Duke so they could both sit up. Coffee sounded like a good idea. “What are you going to do with this place?” he asked.

“I’m not sure. Holiday let maybe? Put it on Airbnb for the tourists? I’m not sure I want just anyone living here full time.”

An idea occurred to Nathan then. He wasn’t sure now was the time to suggest it, but Duke must have seen something of it on his face. “What?” Duke asked. “You look like you were about to say something.”

“Just … if Vince and Dave agree to hand over a load of files and documents … this could be somewhere to store them.”

Duke was surprised and looked round him as though assessing the space for the first time. “That’s … actually not a bad idea.”

“If we’re going to trawl through them all, read everything, research and write stuff up, we’re going to need a space to work in,” Nathan pointed out. “This would be kind of … fitting.”

“It would, wouldn’t it?” Duke nodded.

“Unless you need the income from having tourists to stay,” Nathan said.

“Nah. I’ll just charge them more for their fancy cocktails. All the locals just drink beer or whiskey.”

Nathan laughed. "I mean it. It's up to you how you use this space. You should rent it out if you want."

"Well, it's a moot point if Vince and Dave decide to horde everything anyway. Let's see how it goes." Duke ran his hands through his hair. "Mind if I jump in the shower first?"

"Course not. I'll make coffee."

Nathan watched Duke and his naked ass walk over to the bathroom, then wrapped a sheet around himself to go and get some coffee started in the kitchen. He looked around him at the boxes and piles of clothes. They did have some more sorting out to do today, but they were through the worst of it, he thought. It wasn't just a day's tidying up that loomed in front of them of course, but 27 years of waiting followed by the Troubles starting up again. None of that was going to be easy, but it was a big comfort to think that they would face it together.

And that applied for today as well. Once they were both showered and dressed and had some coffee and slightly-stale pastries inside them, they got back to work and somehow it seemed to go a lot easier today. Before too long they had various piles of bags and boxes to go to various different places and people. They were getting ready to start moving stuff out of the apartment but there was something nagging at the back of Nathan's mind, something he hadn't said. He stopped Duke as they were about to step outside. "Duke I … want to … make sure …" 

"What is it?" Duke asked gently, giving him the space to find the right words.

"This wasn't just this one time because I was upset and we're here. I'm in this for the long haul. With you. Us, I mean."

Duke smiled and pulled him close for another of those soft kisses that turned Nathan's knees to jelly. "Yeah me too Nate," he assured him when they pulled apart. Duke squeezed his hand, watched him to make sure it had sunk in. "Should we talk it through? I mean, are we going public? Do you want to be subtle about it?"

Nathan frowned, having not considered this question. "Well I don't think we should put an announcement in the Herald. But I'm not interested in hiding anything from anyone." He was surprised by the brilliance of Duke's grin. "We've nothing to be ashamed of," he added for emphasis. 

"The smuggler and the police chief? Are you sure?"

Nathan shrugged, unconcerned. "That's all in the past. You own Haven's finest restaurant."

"Yes, yes I do," replied Duke with another grin, happy to take the compliment.

"And you've put yourself on the line for this town time and time again. You've as much right to be considered a reputable member of the community as anyone."

Duke seemed surprisingly thrown by this statement, opened his mouth to say something, changed his mind and pulled Nathan into another kiss instead. “Come on then,” he said when he finally let Nathan up for air. “Let’s get some of these boxes shifted and then we’ll get some lunch.”

Nathan nodded and pulled him back close, intending for just a momentary kiss; an agreement, a punctuation. But kissing Duke was too intoxicating for that and he got drawn into it, the two of them making out like teenagers in the doorway. So many things had happened here. In this apartment, on this balcony. So many of them were bad memories. It was nice to be making a new one. "Suppose …" he began between kisses, "... don't necessarily need …" He had the rest of the sentence in mind, but it got lost, washed away by the wave of sensation that was Duke Crocker pressed up close against him, lips and tongue and hips tight to his.

Duke pulled away after a while, a smile on his lips. "Were you trying to say something?" Duke asked.

Was he? Nathan tried to scan his brain back a few minutes. Oh right. "Don't necessarily need to move these boxes  _ right now _ ," he finished.

Duke grinned at him. Smirked really, and pushed Nathan gently inside. Nathan went willingly, pulling Duke along with him who paused only to lock the door behind them before following Nathan in the direction of the bed. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! :)  
> I'd like to continue this one and I have various thoughts as to how that might happen, though I have complicated things for myself because I've actually already written some of that (with regards to planning for the next round of Troubles) with a slightly different set up [in another fic here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15124304). So any future chapters to this I think will focus more on Duke and Nathan's day to day relationship. It might just be one of those set ups that I come back to now and then to write some slice-of-life / smut additions for tbh. But anyway, hope you enjoyed!  
> ~  
> Now with more chapters added, whoo hoo! ;)


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _Previously, in this fic:_ Duke and Nathan finally acknowledged their feelings for each other, and fell into bed together, feeling Audrey's absence all the while. They have also realised how they can start to plan for the next round of Troubles due in 27 years, and the next woman Audrey will be when she returns.

They made it out of the apartment eventually, and went to see Vickie and Gloria. Gloria was touched with the offer of the scarf and when she wrapped it around her neck they had to agree it suited her. Vickie said she couldn't take everything, but the first blue jacket Nathan had pulled out of the closet looked great on her and she hugged them thank you. 

They put the rest of the clothes in one of the 'to donate' boxes and drove down the coast a way to find somewhere to donate them where they'd be less likely to end up back in Haven. By the time they got back it was evening and they hadn't had a proper meal all day.

"How about a meal in the Gull?" Duke suggested. "We can work out a strategy for how we're going to deal with Vince and Dave."

"Sure," agreed Nathan, distracted as they drove up to the Gull by how different it felt to be there, now that he was not quite so reluctant to look at the stairs at the side of the building, or think about the space above them.

Duke pointed him towards a corner table and went to speak to his staff in the kitchen. "We've got a new dish you're going to love."

Nathan sat down and looked out to sea, feeling more relaxed and closer to happy than he could ever remember. Duke came back with beers and promises of the finest paella known to man and Nathan smiled at him, feeling the rareness of it in the unfamiliar stretch of his face. He reached his hand across the table to Duke's, thinking that he would never get used to this; the touch of skin. The fact that his own skin spoke to him again. The fact that Duke was part of that conversation. 

Duke took a big gulp of beer as he sat down, then smiled his warm smile as he curled his fingers towards Nathan’s. Nathan let his eyes flutter closed as he focused on the touch of skin as their hands moved; fingers running through each other and fingertips caressing palms. It was such a simple touch, chaste really, but he was barely aware of the room around him as he relished the sensation.

After a while Duke coughed and slid his hand away, and when Nathan opened his eyes Duke looked up to where Duncan was bringing over two steaming paellas. Once the food was set down in front of them and they were alone again, Nathan rubbed his face self-consciously. “Sorry, got a bit … lost for a moment.”

“Hey you don’t need to apologise to me. I just figured you might want to wake up before your food arrived,” Duke grinned at him and Nathan saw that he’d been watching, perhaps soaking up the view in the same way Nathan had been soaking up the touch.

“Yeah,” he agreed. “This smells delicious.”

“I told you it’s the best around,” Duke grinned as he speared a chunk of chorizo. Then a little more thoughtfully he added, “Being touched is a really big thing for you, isn’t it? After your Trouble?”

Nathan wasn’t sure how to respond to that, felt his cheeks grow warm as all he could think to do was nod.

“OK two things. One, we are having a proper conversation about that some time when we’re on our own. Two, I didn’t mean it as a criticism. You shouldn’t have to feel self-conscious, not with me and especially not after your Trouble. OK?”

Nathan nodded, not sure what to expect from that future conversation but putting that question to one side for now. “Guess I just have a tendency to get caught up in it,” he admitted, picking up his fork.

“It’s a cross I have to bear that so many people are unable to resist me,” Duke joked. Nathan threw a napkin at him. Duke caught it easily and set it back down on the table, giving Nathan’s hand a quick squeeze while he was there. “So look,” Duke began in a much more serious tone, “Are we really going to try and get all of the Herald’s records and resources off Vince and Dave? And how are we going to go about it, because I can’t imagine they’re going to give any of that up willingly.”

Nathan nodded, marshalled his thoughts into gear. “Might be easier to get access to stuff where it is than to get them to actually hand anything over.”

“Yeah, and that might work fine for a while it’s just; I’m thinking in timescales of 27 years and I don’t want to sound harsh here but I don’t think either of them have that long left in them.”

“No,” agreed Nathan. No one lived forever, not even the perpetually-bickering Teagues brothers. “Probably need to work with them for now, and think about what happens when they’re not around any more.”

“Yeah. But I mean, what does happen when they’re not around any more?” asked Duke, making it a much bigger question. “What happens to the Herald? Who takes that over? And that’s part of this whole thing too isn’t it? It’s probably best if whoever’s writing the headlines in 27 years time knows about the Troubles.”

“Yeah,” agreed Nathan. That was a good point that he hadn’t thought of. He paused for another forkful of paella, which was indeed delicious. “We’ll need a Troubled journalist.”

“Hmmm,” agreed Duke. “Know anyone?”

“No.”

“Not exactly a position we can advertise for. Unless … maybe the Guard?”

“Do we trust them?” wondered Nathan, realising that at some point they might have to.

“No,” replied Duke firmly. "But they might …." Then he stopped, cut himself off. "What if they're making plans too? Do we need to worry about them?"

"Good question. Presuming they've been around for a while, wonder what they usually do between cycles."

"Something else to ask Vince about maybe?" Duke suggested, then at Nathan's unenthusiastic response added, "Is Dwight involved with them as well?"

"Not sure but that's a good call."

"It's either that or Jordan and for all that she's calmed down a bit now with her Trouble dormant I still don't think she'd want to talk to you. Or me for that matter."

"She's not going to see past the Crocker name any time soon," Nathan agreed. "And I burned that bridge. She's no reason to trust me with anything. I'll talk to Dwight though. If we can understand the Guard better, make some connections there, should help next time."

"Yeah. They're never going to trust a Crocker and I don't think they're too keen on the police either but maybe we can …" Duke trailed off again as another thought occurred to him.

"Alright?" asked Nathan after a moment.

"Yeah just … do we need to worry about other factions as well? The religious nutters in this town have been quiet since Audrey put a bullet in the Rev but, do we need to think about them making a comeback?"

Nathan sighed. "Yeah maybe," he realised.

"Because, their opinion on Crockers might also be an issue," said Duke wryly. "Three decades is plenty of time to pressure a Crocker into wielding a knife for them."

“Won’t be you,” Nathan replied.

“No it won’t, but that’s not what I’m worried about. What if they find someone else? Someone who doesn't know about any of this, who can be deceived or manipulated into …"

Nathan saw the panic starting to build in Duke’s eyes and reached forward to squeeze his hand. “Hey. We won’t let that happen,” he assured Duke. “How many Crockers are there? You’ve got brothers, right? Any nieces or nephews?”

Duke put his fork down and ran his fingers through his hair. “A couple of brothers, that I know of. But who knows what Dad got up to. I mean, it’s the bloodline right, not the name? What if I have a whole load of half brothers and sisters I don’t even know about? Or what if Wade has a kid he doesn’t know about? Or hell what if I do? I mean I’m not saying I … but I mean, accidents happen right? We can’t let them turn someone into a murderer just to ...” 

“Hey Duke. We’ll tackle it. OK?”

Duke fidgeted in his chair, stressed out at this new problem.

“Duke, look at me,” Nathan insisted and waited until he did. “We will figure it out, OK? We’ll start with the relatives you know about. Research them just like everything else. I don’t see anyone having any magic Crocker-finding strategies. I have access to police resources; no reason to think the Guard or the Rev's men have any advantage over us.”

“You’d use police time on it?”

Nathan nodded distractedly, thinking the practicalities through. “Thinking we need a Troubles … Taskforce or something. Two or three officers who know what’s going on we can trust to help out. Rafferty maybe? Not sure who else, I’ll have to …” Nathan trailed off, suddenly aware of the way Duke was looking at him. “What?”

“You’d use police time on tracking down my family?” he asked, sounding bemused.

“Not to investigate them," he assured him. “We need to identify people who might be involved, whether anyone takes the Rev's attitude or not. It’s all connected, and to police work too. HPD is going to be a lot less busy in 27 years if we can get a handle of some of this stuff beforehand. If we can warn anyone out there with Crocker blood, they should be better off. And us too.”

Nathan chewed thoughtfully on a mouthful of paella, completely missing the slightly stunned expression on Duke's face. "But we don't need to figure all this out tonight," said Nathan, making a conscious effort to relax. "This really is delicious," he said with feeling, shovelling up another forkful of seafood, chorizo and rice.

Duke beamed at him. "There's a secret ingredient,” he confided in a mock whisper. “In fact, there are multiple secrets. The dish is called the Haven special and no one knows what the ingredients are, how much it will cost or when it will be on the menu. It's a whole theme.”

Nathan laughed, surprised and pleased to find they could actually joke about the Troubles and Haven's secrets. Then he threw another napkin at Duke for his cheekiness, and snuck a tasty-looking morsel of fish from his plate while he was distracted. 


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _Previously, in this fic:_ The boys made it out of bed eventually and carried on the conversation about how they can prepare for the next round of Troubles.

The next morning, Nathan made his way into the police station with feet that were a little lighter than the last time he’d climbed these steps. He wasn’t exactly floating on air; he was still mourning Audrey, still wary of what it would be like to meet another woman who looked like her, still tired from the Troubles they had been through and the thought of 27 years of waiting, and there was a lot of work to be done if things were going to go better next time. Life wasn’t perfect … but it was definitely better than it had been a few days ago. He was aware his change in mood probably showed and he braced himself for the inevitable questions. He didn’t try to hide it though; he’d had enough of secrets to last a lifetime.

He grabbed a coffee, said hello to a couple of people and was almost at his desk when Dwight said hello, or rather said, “Good Morning,” in a way which he managed to make sound very significant.

Nathan put his coffee down on his desk and turned to Dwight. “Morning,” he replied, his smile agreeing with the sentiment.

Dwight grinned back as though he’d been let in on a secret already, hesitated then spoke again. “You and Duke, you …?”

Nathan raised his eyebrows in a query, wanting to hear the actual question before he answered it, but Dwight didn’t get the chance.

“Finally got their shit together was the way I heard it,” Gloria interrupted from the doorway, almost glaring at him as though challenging him to deny it.

“You’re together?” Dwight formalised his question and Nathan nodded, trying to keep his grin to a minimum. 

Dwight’s grin was wide enough for the both of them though. “Congratulations man!” he said with feeling and clapped Nathan on the shoulder. 

And then before he’d even had a chance to recover from the force of Dwight’s enthusiasm, Gloria was hugging his waist, “Well done kiddo. You look after each other, you hear?”

Not quite sure what to do with all this, Nathan muttered, “News travels fast.”

“You spend the evening in the Gull making eyes at each other, stealing food off the other’s plate and feeding each other from your own, and you thought no one would notice?”

“We were not …” Nathan began forcefully, then saw their grins and realised it was pointless. “OK fine. Did either of you have any police work for me or did you just come to fuel Haven’s gossip mill?” he asked aimably. He appreciated the sentiment, but all this attention over one date was a bit much to process.

Still grinning, they shook their heads and made their way out. It wasn’t the last interruption of its kind he had that day. It was a good job there weren’t any significant crimes to deal with.

-

Walking up to the Rouge felt different now. He hadn't been here much in the last three months, in fact probably the last time he'd been here had been with Audrey but he didn't try to work it out. He called out a hello as he walked into the galley and Duke paused in his cooking to give him a quick kiss on the cheek. "Hey Nate."

"Hey," he replied and set the beers he'd brought on the table. "Smells great. Could get used to this."

"Thanks. And good. It's just a quick stir fry but they had some great ingredients at the market. How was your day?"

"Odd, actually,” replied Nathan, sitting down at the table. “Dwight asked if we were together, then clapped me so hard on the shoulder my feet nearly disappeared through the floor. No one else even bothered with the question. Gloria came over just to hug me. Never been congratulated so much in my life."

Duke laughed in recognition. "I've had congratulations today from people I don't even know. Gloria came to see me too, I had staff who weren't working today drop by just to see what was going on. I guess there really isn't much that happens in this town now, if we're the most interesting piece of news around."

"May as well've put an ad in the Herald," Nathan joked.

Duke laughed and then suddenly stopped. "Have you spoken to them today?"

"Vince and Dave? No actually. Why, d'you …" Nathan started to ask then realised what Duke was thinking. "They wouldn't. Would they?"

Duke shurgged. "'POLICE CHIEF SEDUCED BY SMUGGLER TURNED RESTAURATEUR'," he quoted a potential headline. "I really wouldn't put it past them."

"Could ask," pondered Nathan, reaching for his phone. "Though, might just give them the idea."

"And asking them not to publish it will just give them more of a story," Duke agreed as he started putting food into bowls. "Anyway, there can't actually be many people who know who we are but don't already know."

"Yeah." Nathan put his phone away.

"I even had people congratulating me in my dreams," added Duke after a moment. He brought over two bowls of delicious looking stir fry and sat down opposite Nathan. "Or rather, I had Audrey congratulating me in my dream. She said we'd be really good together. She told me she was happy for me. For us."

Nathan nodded. "I think she would be."

"Yeah, it was very believable. And then we talked about what a good kisser you are and how much more gorgeous you are than you realise, and then she was telling me how hot the two of us would be together and could she watch, and then it turned into a whole other kind of dream."

Nathan's reaction was torn between self conscious bemusement at being described as gorgeous, and amused interest at the rest of Duke's dream. He resolved the conflict by focusing on a different part of the story. "Mostly don't remember my dreams, even of her. Just get moments; memories mostly. When I realised I could feel her, or the first time we kissed." He bent his head towards his bowl to take in the mouth-watering aroma. "This looks amazing."

"Dig in," Duke told him, handing over cutlery and grabbing a bottle opener to open them each a beer.

"Really good," Nathan told him enthusiastically through a mouthful of food.

"Thanks!" They were quiet for a moment or two as they enjoyed the food and the beer, and then Duke spoke again. "You dream about your Trouble a lot?" 

"Sometimes. The way her touch cut through it. The moment it went away."

"What was that like?" Duke asked softly. He was curious but cautious too; Nathan knew he didn't have to answer if he didn't want to. 

He cast around for an analogy to describe the impossible. "Imagine being deaf. Completely deaf for years. And suddenly you're surrounded by an orchestra, and you can hear every note. It's beautiful music but …"

"But it's a lot all at once."

"Yeah. Audrey was just one instrument. Sudden and unexpected and beautiful. But when she wasn't there just, more silence." Nathan reached across the table to take Duke’s hand, and looked down at the point where their fingers touched, and where his hand rested on the table. "Now I can feel your skin but I can feel the table too. Your instrument has a … a supporting track. Context," Nathan finished. 

"I'm an instrument?" Duke asked, amused.

"In this analogy you are."

"What kind of instrument?"

"Um … some kind that can be played loud and fierce but can also be gentle and soft."

"Careful," Duke teased with a glint in his eye, "that was almost a compliment."

Nathan smiled and closed his eyes as he turned his hand into Duke's suddenly very soft and gentle touch. Their fingers played over each other and Nathan revelled in the sensation; his own skin returned to him, and now Duke's skin too; a whole new type of conversation between them. But he had been wrong before. This wasn't just a conversation; this was a  _ song _ .

"You like this soft kind of melody," Duke observed, surprising Nathan a little with how he stuck to the analogy.

"Yeah," Nathan breathed, opening his hand out wide to give Duke better access to his palm. "It's so …" but words failed him.

"And I am very much enjoying watching you soak it all up, but you do have a decision to make," Duke said, the affection in his voice plain to hear.

"Hmmmwhat's ‘at?" Nathan asked, not moving.

"Do you want to finish your stir fry, because it's not going to keep for later."

With a conscious effort of will, Nathan dragged open his eyes and slowly pulled his hand back across the table. "Shows how good your cooking is, to be worth giving that up for."

"Oh hey, there's more where that came from. There's more of both, any time you want."

"You'll spoil me."

“I’ll have fun with you,” Duke corrected him.

“I hope so,” Nathan replied earnestly. “Sometimes I get too caught up in it to reciprocate.”

“Don’t worry about that Nate. That’s what I wanted to say from before; I don’t want you to ever apologise for enjoying yourself with me. I mean it,” he insisted in response to Nathan’s slightly dubious expression. “Only reason I’m going to be pissed is if you roll over and go to sleep once you’re done and leave me hanging.”

“I wouldn’t …”

“There you are then. So don’t feel bad for enjoying something.”

“Even if I’m completely spaced out just from holding hands?” Nathan replied with a soft laugh at himself.

“Yes, absolutely. And anyway, you were still coherent enough to recognise the value of a good meal. So I figure I don't need to worry too much about you getting totally spaced out."

"You’re worried?" asked Nathan with a frown.

"Just in the sense that you just looked so open and relaxed and trusting, I wouldn't want to break that trust by pushing past any boundaries by mistake. You know like, a few drinks is one thing,” Duke said, reaching for his beer as though to illustrate his point, “but if someone's flat out drunk and they're not in a position to know what’s going on then there’s no consent there."

"Hmmm," replied Nathan, considering this. 

"Should we talk about boundaries, anything you don't want to do? Or do want to do?" Duke added.

Nathan took a gulp of beer and looked at him thoughtfully. "Stuff we've done so far's been fun."

"Yes," agreed Duke. "Yes it has. So maybe we don't think about anything too different for a while. Give you a chance to adjust and your nerve endings to settle down."

"That OK? What if they don't?"

"Then every single time I touch you I will delight in how responsive you are and count myself the luckiest man around for how much fun I’m having.” Duke started to reach his hand across the table to Nathan’s then stopped himself to lean forward and peer into Nathan’s bowl. “Finish your meal and I’ll show you what I mean.”

Nathan blinked at him for a moment before he carried on eating. A few moments later Duke pushed his bowl to one side and then Nathan was finished as well, washing the last of the vegetables down with a final swig of beer.

Duke reached his hand across the table and pulled Nathan’s towards him. “Now, I could probably rustle up some desert if I put my mind to it,” Duke began in a tone of voice that told Nathan he had no intention of doing any such thing. “But I think that desert today might be you.” He played with Nathan’s willing hand like he had before, their fingers running over and through each other. Nathan leant forward on his other arm and closed his eyes on a happy sigh. After a moment Duke pulled Nathan’s hand upwards to softly kiss his palm, then his fingers, then opened his mouth to take a fingertip inside, tongue and lips moving slowly against skin. Nathan moaned and bit his lip. The way Duke touched him, the way he used his fingers and his mouth, he was pretty sure he would have found it fairly overwhelming even without the history of his Trouble making every moment more significant.

Duke pulled his mouth away and took Nathan’s hands in both of his; warm and strong and gentle. "For the record Nate I am totally enjoying myself here. The straight-laced respectable police chief turning into a complete mess in my hands, it’s all good with me."

"'m not a compl’ m'ss," protested Nathan half-heartedly, fully aware that his argument was not helped by his inability to form fully articulate words.

"Yeah," breathed Duke as he leant forward, "but I've hardly even gotten started yet."


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _Previously, in this fic:_ Haven noticed Duke and Nathan's new relationship status, and they discussed it with each other, as well as Nathan's relationship to touch in the wake of his Trouble.

Nathan hummed in appreciative anticipation at Duke’s promise of more to come, and relaxed across the table towards him and their joined hands. “Love your touch,” Nathan murmured

For a moment Duke’s heart flipped over. For all that their relationship had a kind of always-already feel about it, for all that they knew each other about as well as any couple could hope to, and for all that they both saw their future together for 27 years and beyond, they hadn’t actually said, “I love you,” yet, and it seemed like it would still be a significant moment when they eventually did. Not a moment like this, not murmured distractedly with eyes closed while stretched across a table at an awkward looking angle. But then Nathan finished his sentence and Duke’s heart calmed back down; he hadn’t said those three significant words, he was still talking about touch.

“And I love your skin,” Duke replied. “Come on let’s take ourselves somewhere I can reach more of it.”

-

It was warm in the bedroom and when Nathan commented on it, Duke started to apologise until Nathan cut him off, “I like it.”

Duke grinned at him. 

“Feels … soft. Relaxing.”

They kissed slowly and Duke started to pull gradually at Nathan’s clothes. “I want to touch you everywhere,” he murmured against Nathan’s lips, then pushed him back towards the bed. It was only a gentle push really, but in his distracted state Nathan hadn’t seen it coming and he fell backwards heavily, glad of the well-padded king-sized bed.

“All yours,” Nathan mumbled as though he had no say in the matter and didn’t want to change a thing.

Duke pulled the clothes from both of them until Nathan lay naked, soaking up the warmth of the air, the soft sheets beneath him and Duke’s skin beside him. And then Duke’s touch found him, caressed him all over with a gentle pressure that left him breathless. Nimble, clever fingers touched him everywhere he wanted them too, and places he had never before even thought of as erotic, like the inside of his elbows or the back of his neck. He felt his blood pump hard through his whole body even as his muscles relaxed into the warm sensations.

“You good?” Duke asked after a while.

Nathan replied with a soft whine from the back of his throat. It wasn’t very coherent, but it would have to do, and he thought Duke would understand. 

Duke ran a finger along Nathan’s jaw to turn his head to face him and prompt Nathan to look at him. They looked into each other’s eyes for a long intense moment, Nathan shifting his hips happily underneath Duke’s hand where it rested on his thigh. Duke studied his eyes for another moment then seemed to decide he was happy with what he saw and moved his attention back to his touches. He found points of skin Nathan had hardly been aware of even before his Trouble; not only the soles of his feet but the spaces between his toes, not only his stomach but the small of his back too, reaching around Nathan’s waist to find a patch of unexpectedly-sensitive skin over his spine that caused his to arch his back and groan loudly. 

Eventually, apparently satisfied that Nathan was appropriately drunk on the sensation of touch, Duke moved his hands, and his mouth, to the more obvious places. He flicked his tongue against a nipple, he squeezed Nathan’s balls with not-quite-too-much pressure and then, finally, he moved his attention to Nathan’s cock; squeezing, stroking, licking, sucking. Nathan soaked it all up, happily incoherent, aware of nothing but the sensation of touch and the automatic movements his body made, not caring even to listen to the sounds that went with them.

When his orgasm hit it was an intense bolt of feeling that seemed to grow directly out of the relaxation of his body as well as what Duke was doing to him. He let his hips pulse through the pleasure how they wanted, aware of no conscious movement except the way his fingers curled in the sheets either side of him.

When his body stilled itself he was still breathing hard and he opened his eyes to find Duke looking at him with a soft warm smile. “That was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen,” Duke told him with feeling, and Nathan felt a blush run to his cheeks. “The way you let go, the way you relaxed into it. The look on your face. The  _ sounds  _ you made. God, Nathan.”

“All because of you,” Nathan replied earnestly. “Come here’n kiss me.”

Duke stretched out alongside him and they kissed lazily for a while, Nathan’s brain and muscles gradually coming back online, until Nathan pushed Duke onto his back to look down at him. “Anything specific you want?”

Nathan saw Duke hesitate. 

"You can tell me."

“Make it fast but … not quick,” Duke said. When Nathan frowned in confusion he added, “Move your hand quick, fast, hard, just … spaced out, with gaps. Give me lots of nearly there moments.”   


Nathan smiled. “Stay there so I can see you,” he said, and shifted to staddle Duke’s legs where he could watch what he was doing, and watch Duke’s reaction to it too. He would have to pay attention if he was going to take Duke only up to that nearly-there point and not past it. It was a challenge he was very happy to take on.

Duke stretched out underneath him and Nathan ran his hands down Duke’s chest, relishing a different kind of sensation now as his hands pressed against Duke’s firm muscles and then down to brush over hair and wrap his fingers around Duke’s cock, still enough of a novelty that it was arousing in itself to feel Duke’s arousal in his hands. 

He started slow just for a moment; just to feel for the right pressure and then he moved quick; fast intense strokes until he saw Duke start to gasp and tense underneath him. He stopped then, fingers curled lightly around the base, touching balls as much as cock.

“Yeah,” Duke breathed. “Yeah like that.”

So Nathan did it again. And again. A stroke or two longer each time, he started out with long gaps between and then gradually shortened them, watching and feeling Duke’s gasps and moans and muscles tensing all the while. 

“Yeah, fuck yes Nate,” Duke muttered.

“Wanna come?”

“Yeah.”

Nathan responded with another quick burst of movement, another moment of stillness, looking down at Duke on the edge beneath him and feeling the warmth of Duke’s body between his knees.

“Fuck,” muttered Duke, tensed against the sheets.

“Sure you wanna come?” Nathan asked as he repeated the same movement again.

Duke only whined.

“Don’t think you do really. Think you want me to make you wait for it.”

Duke opened his eyes and they held each other’s gaze for a few intense moments as Nathan played with that almost-there point a couple more times, then without warning he pushed right on through it, Duke shouting at the ceiling in surprise as he came. Nathan shifted forwards to kiss the last of his shouts away and press their bodies together as Duke’s moved through the last pulses of his pleasure.

Eventually they rolled apart enough to grin at each other.

“Good?”

“Good. Good?”

“Good.”

They grinned, unconcerned at their lack of coherence, and snuggled up together as they lay back against the pillows, mere moments from sleep.  Duke thought about saying it then, those three little words, but he wasn’t sure it was the right time. He didn’t want it to be all about the sex, fantastic though that had just been. It was more than that, for both of them he was sure. He would find the right time to say it, and soon, but for now he fell asleep with the sentiment on the tip of his tongue;  _ I love you Nate. _


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _Previously, in this fic:_ Duke and Nathan start to build a new relationship, as they also start to think about how to be better prepared for the next round of Troubles.

When Nathan woke he had a brief moment of disorientation before he remembered; The Cape Rouge. He was asleep on The Cape Rouge, in the master bedroom, and Duke Crocker was at his side. He glanced out at the barely visible sky, and over at the clock; it was still early. Far too early to get up, even for him who often didn't sleep well, and he thought Duke could probably do with the rest.

So he just rolled slowly over to face him, and there he was, Duke Crocker asleep. He was such a beautiful man, right now more so than ever, relaxed and warm in the dim light of the bedroom. Nathan reached up a hand to rest softly on Duke's arm, and then cautiously his fingers found Duke's face, softly tracing the shape of his skull.

After a moment Duke stirred, and Nathan felt guilty.

"Don't wake up. It's early."

"Couldn't resist me huh?" joked Duke sleepily, his eyes still closed.

"Shouldn't have woken you sorry."

"It's fine. Nice," replied Duke angling his head as though seeking more contact. "And'm not 'xactly awake.”

So Nathan ran a finger gently from Duke's forehead along his cheek and down his neck to his collarbone and on towards a nipple. "Kind of like the thought of touching you while you sleep," Nathan admitted slowly. "Is that terrible?"

"No if you do it like that," Duke replied happily and stretched out beneath him like a sun-warmed cat.

And so, Nathan touched. Featherlight touches he could sometimes hardly even feel, but which seemed like a gift all the same because he would never have been able to control the pressure so closely with his Trouble active.

Touching Duke was different from being touched; less overwhelming and more fascinating. Uniquely Duke in a different way; from the curve of his shoulders to the artwork inked into his smooth clear skin, sun tanned almost everywhere.

Duke lay still and relaxed, eyes closed, and if it weren't for the rhythm of his breathing Nathan could easily have believed he was asleep. So he toyed with that idea for a while, unsure why he liked it and resolving to try and work that out another time. It was the trust of it perhaps, the closeness. Or maybe even the thought of doing something he knew he shouldn't really be doing, the thrill of possibly getting caught in something he'd already admitted to.

In any case, he ran his hands slowly over Duke's torso and listened to the occasional subtle gasp or quiet moan that told him when he'd hit a sensitive spot. Duke shifted occasionally, relaxing further against the bed and into Nathan's touch. 

As his hands moved slowly further down Duke's body, the quiet little gasps and subtle moans became slightly more frequent. Touching lightly, just the tips of his fingers against the skin of Duke's stomach, he moved down to hip bones and towards the line dividing suntanned skin from pale that sat about as low on his body as any piece of clothing ever could. As his fingers brushed on over it and down into the patch of hair between Duke's legs there came a slightly different sounding moan.

Nathan turned his attention to Duke's face. "Alright?" he asked.

"Yeah," Duke breathed without moving. "Don't stop."

-

Duke floated in that blissful half-asleep state that he usually pulled himself quickly out of to get on with his day, but with Nathan in bed with him - Nathan and his unhurried, careful fingers - he had no interest in moving at all. 

It was rare for him to be so relaxed and so aroused at the same time. He usually preferred to be more active than this (or at least, more engaged with what was going on), but with his muscles sluggish from sleep and his eyes still closed to the world it was the perfect time to lie back and let Nathan explore his body in his own time. In between touches he floated thoughtlessly on the pleasure and the contentment of it, Nathan warm and gentle by his side.

He was awake enough to know that he was awake, to be aware of the world around him and to remember last night and the fact that Nathan was here. But he was still asleep enough that he felt no need to analyse or plan, or to think about anything at all. It didn’t matter how long the gaps were between Nathan’s touches, they just came when they came. There was no tease to it, no frustrated urgency, there was just blissful mindless pleasure. He was dimly aware it might hold some kind of end point in store for him eventually, but it didn’t matter when that came; he didn’t wait, he didn’t seek anything out, he just … purred.

-

It occured to Nathan, as his fingers ran over the skin that Duke didn't even show to the sun, that if anyone had told him six months ago that he would ever be touching Duke like this he would have laughed at them in disbelief. 

And if they had somehow managed to persuade him it was true, and he had stopped to wonder what it would be like, he would never have imagined this. To see Duke so relaxed and open, to feel the warmth and the texture of his skin and to know how good he was making Duke feel. He would not have thought it possible and yet now here he was, with Trouble-free fingers that could feel the soft warmth of Duke's most sensitive skin as he pressed just firmly enough to draw a long lazy moan of contended pleasure out of him, palms that could sense the tension in the muscles beneath them as he ran a hand over Duke's thigh, and the hands that sensed the stuttering of hips that pressed Duke's cock further into them when at last he finally came. 

"Just to be clear, you can absolutely wake me up like that any fucking day you like," said Duke, lying back with eyes closed, shifting against the sheets as he stretched. He breathed in a few big deep breaths, waking up at last, and finally opened his eyes to see Nathan grinning down at him.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _Previously, in this fic:_ Duke and Nathan start to build a new relationship, as they also start to think about how to be better prepared for the next round of Troubles.

They discussed it, on and off, for weeks before they finally went to talk to Vince and Dave about the archives. They'd hoped to come up with some kind of plan; a strategy they could have some confidence in. But the Teagues were hard to predict and in the end they decided to just wing it.

"Nathan," Dave greeted them happily as they walked into the Herald. "Duke."

"2037," Nathan ignored the pleasantries and got straight to the point.

"What?" asked Dave, bemused.

"2037. That'll be the year she comes back."

Dave's face collapsed in on itself. He didn't need any more explanation.

"You'll be, what? A hundred years old?”

Vince appeared from the back room. "Yes, thank you Nathan," he said testily. "We had worked out we're not likely to see another round of the Troubles."

"And when you're gone what happens to this place?” Nathan pushed on. “All the records and information in the archive?"

Vince and Dave looked at each other uncomfortably.

"More to the point, what happens to all the information hidden away inside those thick skulls of yours?" added Duke.

There was a long and equally uncomfortable pause.

"You finally ready to actually  _ talk to us _ about the Troubles?" asked Duke.

Vince sighed and sat down heavily. “Fine,” he said. “What do you want to know.”

-

A little while later Duke and Nathan walked back down the steps to the street, feeling somewhat more informed and a lot more positive. “That went much better than expected,” Duke commented happily as they climbed into the landrover to drive back to the Gull. “That they spoke to us today and also promised to do so again is two more things than I thought we might get.”

Nathan nodded in agreement. “And a promise to think about what happens to the Herald. With any luck they’ll think of someone to take it over and we’ll be set.”

“As long as whoever it is turns out to be co-operative. If they want to keep all the records there, fine, but that’s no good to us if we can’t get to them.”

“True, but it’s good progress. Are you working in the Gull today?”

Duke looked at the time and nodded, “Yeah, unfortunately I should go help out with the lunch prep. How about you?”

“Paperwork. Need to go into the station. Going to write some of that conversation down first though. Keep a note of everything.”

“Yeah we should. I thought I might start a journal,” said Duke with a slightly pained expression.

“Was just thinking the same thing,” admitted Nathan. “Feels surreal to say it.”

“We could stop in town; the bookshop probably sells something that would work as a journal.”

“Yeah good idea.”

“I can drop you at the station after if you like?”

“Nah, I’ll pick up the bronco at the Gull.”

-

By the time they arrived back at the Gull, they were both the new owner of a new and blank journal that they would start to fill with any information they had that might help whoever Audrey turned out to be the next time she came to Haven.

“Strange to think Vince’s been head of the Guard this whole time,” Nathan commented as they got out of the landrover.

“Dave being adopted explains a thing or two,” Duke added. “There’s still some stuff they haven’t told us though.”

“Lots of stuff,” Nathan agreed.

They lingered outside the Gull, neither of them terribly keen to go back to work. “Next time we speak to them, I might suggest that if there’s anything they don’t want to admit to face to face they write it down and leave it for us to find once they’re gone. Or even to be read just by her, though I don’t suppose they’d trust us not to read it.”

“Could find someone else maybe. Lawyers or … something?” Nathan wondered.

“Maybe. Something else though; we need to find a way to refer to whoever Audrey is going to be next time other than ‘her’. It’s too vague and it feels dismissive.”

“Yeah I know. Been thinking about it, but doesn’t feel right to say Audrey and we don’t know what her name’ll be.”

“We need a general term for someone who’s Not Audrey, like, ….er, The Next … Barn … Woman?” Duke said, screwing up his face and shaking his head at himself. 

“The Next Generation?”

Duke looked dubious. “The Next .... um… .”

Nathan shook his head. “There is nothing. Maybe we should just pick a name.”

“Did Audrey have a middle name?”

“Prudence,” replied Nathan.

“Oh that’s right” replied Duke remembering. “I think I blocked that from my memory it’s so terrible.”

“Pru?”

Duke shrugged. “It’ll do for now,” he agreed. “We’ll just have to try not to get so used to it that we call her it by mistake when she’s really called like … Lexie or something.”

“Lexie?” asked Nathan, puzzled.

“First thing that came into my head.”

“It’s better than Prudence,” said Nathan cautiously.

“Anything’s better than Prudence,” replied Duke with feeling.

“Lexie it is,” decided Nathan and turned towards the bronco. “See you later?”

“Absolutely. Enjoy your paperwork,” Duke teased.

Nathan frowned at him, then kissed him on the cheek. “Enjoy the lunch rush.”

“Anything’s better than paperwork Nate,” Duke responded as he took a step towards the Gull.

“You know we just set ourselves up for 27 years of paperwork, right?” Nathan pointed out with a wave of his journal.

“Yeah but that’s different. It’ll be worth it if it helps … Lexie.”

Nathan nodded his agreement. “See you later.”

Duke waved as he disappeared inside and Nathan stood and looked at the building for a moment. They had a lot of work ahead of them, but today felt like progress. Audrey would be proud of them, he thought. It would definitely be worth it.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _Previously, in this fic:_ As part of their efforts to prepare for next time, Duke and Nathan spoke to Vince and Dave about the Troubles, and decided to each keep journals to document the information they learn in an effort to help the next woman Audrey will be.

Nathan’s journal, opening entry:  
~  
Here’s what we know so far. There are people in Haven with paranormal abilities. Improbable, impossible abilities that break all known laws of physics. These abilities run in families, and we call them Troubles. Not everyone who is affected by one knows what the Troubles are or how theirs works (we’re going to try and change that). 

Many people have Troubles that they can’t control, and some of those Troubles are dangerous. Suddenly finding your body doing something impossible that you can’t control can be disorienting at best. The Troubles can turn good people into scared and volatile killing machines.

A person with a particular Trouble will pass that same Trouble on to their children (or for some Troubles, only to sons or only to daughters). But the ability will only manifest itself if the Trouble is triggered, which usually happens due to a dramatic and emotionally significant event. Often the nature of those emotions are related to the way the Trouble works.

This town is a Haven for people with Troubles because here they are not always active. Even for those whose Troubles have been triggered, when the cycle ends and the Troubles become dormant, their paranormal abilities disappear. The cycle seems to always be 27 years long and it is related to a woman who comes here when the Troubles are active to help us deal with them. She comes every cycle. I knew her in 2010 as Audrey Parker. In 1983 she was Lucy Ripley. In 1956 she was Sarah Vernon. We’re not sure how many women came before her. Each of these women is different; different personality, different interests, different ways of helping Troubled people. But each of them helps in a way no one else can. And each of them look alike.

We believe the Troubles will become active again in 2037, and another woman who looks like the Audrey Parker we knew will come to Haven to help the Troubled. We know what each of these women has done for this town, and the sacrifices they have made. We know how important she will be, and how daunting her task will seem. We want to do everything we can to try and make it easier for her, and for Haven.

We’re going to start with information gathering, and I’m going to document as much as I can here. Duke is keeping a journal too; with two perspectives and two sets of records there is less chance something will get missed. I don’t know whether we did everything we could for Audrey. We tried but … Well. We’re going to try again. And this time we’ve got time to prepare.  
~


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _Previously, in this fic:_ As part of their efforts to prepare for next time, Duke and Nathan spoke to Vince and Dave about the Troubles, and decided to each keep journals to document the information they learn in an effort to help the next woman Audrey will be.

Duke’s Journal, opening entry:  
~  
I don’t know your name. Or where you’re from or what brought you to Haven. But I know you look like the woman I love ~~d~~ and I know you’re trying to help the people in this town that no one else knows how to help. I know you have questions and I know you need information, so I’m going to use this journal to set down anything I know that I think might help you. And whoever you are, I know that you’re amazing. And even though it probably doesn’t seem like it, I know that you are just exactly where you’re meant to be. And that if Nathan and I are still around, we will do anything you need us to. Just ask.  
~


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _Previously, in this fic:_ As part of their efforts to prepare for next time, Duke and Nathan spoke to Vince and Dave about the Troubles, and decided to each keep journals to document the information they learn in an effort to help the next woman Audrey will be.

Nathan’s journal: 

~

Today we spoke to Vince and Dave Teagues. They run the Haven Herald and they know more about Haven and its secrets than anyone. Anyone else their age would have retired years ago and they are unlikely to still be alive in 2037. So we are trying to get as much information out of them as we can now. By talking to them, and by getting access to the newspaper’s records and the archive of research they’ve collected through decades as journalists in this town. 

I didn’t expect them to co-operate. But I think now they know they aren’t likely to see any active Troubles again it’s easier for them to talk about. Today Vince told us a little about his Trouble and its link to the Guard. They are an organisation of (mostly) Troubled people that seeks to help and protect those with Troubles any way it can. 

Audrey helped people by talking to them and helping them to deal with the emotion that underlies the Trouble. When that works it often means the Troubled person can learn to control the Trouble and live a normal (or at least relatively safe) life. The Guard tends to take a more practical approach to dealing with the effects of the Trouble as it stands. They are secretive, committed and not afraid to use force or break the law to get what they want. We are still working out how much we can trust them. 

Vince inherited his position as leader of the Guard, but he leaves no children to inherit it from him*. This leaves a power vacuum which makes me uneasy. Some of the Guard members are not stable or sensible enough to lead an organisation with the kind of power the Guard can wield. Dwight Hendrickson is involved with them I think. He is one of the most sensible people I’ve ever met so I’m hoping he will take on the job.

(* or at least, I assume he doesn't leave any children. I don't know of any. But it might not be sensible to just assume. I need a To Do list, and a Things To Ask The Teagues list.)

Today we also learned that Dave is adopted. I think there’s more to that story than he’s ever going to tell us. I'm not sure even Vince knows the full details. I can't imagine how it could be significant but he's clearly holding back on something relevant. Those two have kept their secrets for so long (even from each other) it’s not easy for them to break the habit now. We’re going to suggest that what they can’t tell us outright they write down, either for us to read once their gone, or to be kept for the next woman who comes here to help us. If they write any confessions they don’t want us to read I’ll respect that. 

I’m less inclined to respect their wishes regarding the archive. They have a vast store of information in the form of old copies of the Herald, research for those articles, and investigating they’ve done into the Troubles through three cycles of them. That’s valuable information that the town needs. I’m hoping they’ll agree to hand it over to us. If they don’t, we may have to consider ways to take it from them.

~


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _Previously, in this fic:_ As part of their efforts to prepare for next time, Duke and Nathan spoke to Vince and Dave about the Troubles, and decided to each keep journals to document the information they learn in an effort to help the next woman Audrey will be.

Duke’s Journal:

~

If you want my advice, be wary of any information that comes via Vince or Dave Teagues. Those boys have been keeping secrets for so long they've forgotten what the truth looks like.

They each seem to have several conflicting hidden agendas and there is always some hidden meaning and something missing from every single thing they say. 

But they've a lot of knowledge locked up in those thick heads of theirs, so I'm going to try and talk some of it out of them and I'll write all of that down here.

I don't know if you want to hear this, but it might help to explain some of their actions that I'm fairly sure Dave was in love with Sarah, and Vince fell for Lucy in a big way. Exactly what Sarah and Lucy felt about that is less clear.

I don't know how much you know about your connection to Sarah, Lucy and Audrey as you're reading this, but I know that Audrey wanted to know more about Lucy, Sarah and all the others who came before her, so I'll try and tell you what I know about them.

It seems to me they were all very determined, focused people. They all wanted to help people and they all had a strong sense of justice. Audrey could be almost ruthless sometimes in her commitment to do whatever was needed to tackle the Trouble at hand. She could be soft though too, and funny. She was decisive, and brave, and strong. And she was a great detective, though it pained me to admit it.

Sarah was fierce, defiant, inquisitive. She didn't suffer fools gladly I don't think. I met her, believe it or not, when Stuart Mosley's timetravel Trouble sent me and Nathan back to the 1950s. Timetravel? I don't recommend it.

Lucy I met when I was a child, though my memories of her are kind of fuzzy. I was there when she found the Colorado Kid's body, but no one who was there can remember that day at all. We still haven't got to the bottom of that. I remember her as kind, careful, compassionate and considerate. 

These women all have some kind of similar qualities to them, but they are all distinctly different people to each other. Even as I know you will in some ways be similar to them, I can't wait to meet the unique and wonderful person that you are going to be.

~


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _Previously, in this fic:_ As part of their efforts to prepare for next time, Duke and Nathan spoke to Vince and Dave about the Troubles, and decided to each keep journals to document the information they learn in an effort to help the next woman Audrey will be.

Duke peered into the bag and pulled out another sandwich. "This was a good idea," he said, and bit into it.

Lying on his back beside him, Nathan turned his face further into the sun and felt the movement of his head push his knuckles further into the sand. "It was," he replied.

"I was talking about the lunch from Rosemary's," Duke clarified.

"I was talking about the day trip."

"I guess we're both geniuses," decided Duke, and took another bite of Rosemary's sandwich, wondering for the umteenth time what she did to make bread that tasted better than any he'd come across anywhere. If the Troubles were still active he'd have wondered if there were something paranormal about it.

At Duke's suggestion they had taken a boat out along the coast through a tangled collection of tiny islands that most people didn't bother to navigate unless they had a pressing need to. And there they had found a tiny patch of beach, facing into the sun and surrounded by nothing but sea and trees, peace and quiet. It was a beautiful spot to swim, sunbathe, eat delicious sandwiches, and just chill out and relax in each other's company. They had come out of the Troubles better off than they might have done, but still worse than they'd have liked - all those months of near-disaster had taken their toll and both of them needed the relaxation now and then.

Duke finished his sandwich and offered Nathan one, who shook his head so Duke closed up the bag again and put it behind a nearby rock for a bit of shade.

"It got me thinking," Nathan began.

"Uh oh," Duke joked.

Without opening his eyes or moving his head, Nathan stretched out an arm and gave Duke a playful shove. Duke toppled over on his side laughing in exaggerated reaction, then joined Nathan lying on his back to look up at the occasional passing cloud.

"Got me thinking about my Trouble," Nathan continued.

"Oh?" said Duke, asking for more detail. Once he might have said that Nathan didn't talk much, and even less about himself, but he was starting to realise that wasn't necessarily true; he just needed to be given some space to find the right words.

Nathan nodded but it was a moment before he spoke again. "How it works. Audrey pointed it out once. But I wasn't ready to believe it then. I told her about how my Trouble got triggered. About that fishing trip. I blamed you Duke, I told her not to trust you. I'm sorry."

Duke didn't really know what to say to this and before he could respond Nathan carried on.

"If it's any consolation I don't think she paid it any mind."

"Yeah she didn't listen to me when I told her not to hang out with you either," Duke teased.

"But a while after, she asked me how my Trouble worked. The emotional state that triggered it. I thought it was anger at feeling betrayed but she … asked if I was in love with you."

Duke made a conscious decision not to respond, just waited for what Nathan wanted to say.

"I was of course,” Nathan admitted after a moment. “Always was. Just didn't see it then. I was in denial about my feelings for you. We'd argued so much and I ... couldn't admit to them, couldn't bring myself to feel them."

"So your Trouble stopped you feeling anything at all." 

"It didn't though. Not that." Nathan turned on his side to face him, and Duke did the same so they were face to face. "I never stopped loving you," Nathan said, intense and serious. "I love you Duke. I hope you know that."

This declaration took Duke's breath away. Not just those three little words, and not even just the other words that led up to them, but the way they were said. That tone of voice, so level, so serious, so careful and intense. There could be no doubting the truth of anything spoken in that tone of voice.

"I love you too Nate," he said earnestly, and leant forwards for a kiss.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _Previously, in this fic:_ In between preparations for the next round of Troubles, Duke and Nathan took the day off, and Nathan admitted to the way his feelings for Duke triggered his Trouble.

Dwight opened the door to Rosemary’s and there was Nathan, on his way out.

“Dwight. Been meaning to talk to you. Got a minute?”

“As long as you don’t keep me from my coffee and croissant,” Dwight replied, only half joking.

“Not at all; I’ll buy,” Nathan offered.

There were only a few tables in Rosemary’s but they found a space in the corner and sat down with their drinks and pastries.

“Everything alright?” asked Dwight.

“Yeah, fine. Just wanted to ask about the Guard. You’re involved with them, right?”

Dwight sighed. “Yeah. I’m wondering if I should be.”

“You should,” Nathan said firmly. At Dwight’s look of surprise he carried on. “They’re potentially a significant power here and everyone else involved with them I know is … not stable enough to be throwing that kind of power around. They’re going to need a new leader at some point, and Haven needs someone responsible in charge.”

Dwight, looking even more surprised, asked, “You’re hoping I’ll take on the job?”

“Is it so ridiculous?”

Dwight sighed again. “Let me think about it.”

“OK. That’s all I ask.” They tackled their pastries in companionable silence for a little while before Nathan spoke again. “How active are the Guard between cycles?”

“There’s still stuff going on. Bringing people into town from across the country, further than that sometimes. The Troubles are still active out there in the world, remember.”

“Right,” replied Nathan. “I do tend to forget that. If I can help with anything - me or Duke, you’ll let us know?”

“Most people in the Guard don’t want help from a Crocker, Nathan. I’m sorry but they don’t, that’s just how it is.”

Now it was Nathan’s turn to sigh. “Yeah, I know.” He hesitated then. "How’s Jordan?"

"Not your biggest fan," replied Dwight, in an obvious understatement.

Nathan shifted uncomfortably.

"But I think she'll be OK."

"Considered going to talk to her. I’d like her to know I didn't set out to hurt her."

"But you did set out to use her,” Dwight pointed out. “Is that supposed to be any better?"

Nathan frowned into the remains of his coffee.

"Look, man, I get why you did it. OK? I do. But that is what you did and you can't expect Jordan to be happy about it."

Nathan nodded. "Maybe it’s best if I stay away from her."

Dwight nodded, decided to lighten the mood just a touch. "Even without her Trouble she could still do you some damage and you can feel pain now so, yeah. I'd leave her alone if I were you. She's still recovering."

Nathan nodded and finished his coffee. “See? This is exactly the kind of level-headed talk the Guard needs.”

“Yeah. I’ll think about it,” promised Dwight.


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I thought it was time for some more smut and it turned out to be the angsty kind; the boys are missing Audrey.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _Previously, in this fic:_ Nathan spoke to Dwight about the Guard (and about Jordan) and asked Dwight to think about taking over from Vince as leader when the time comes.

It was the end of the day and Duke made his way out of the bathroom to join Nathan in bed. Nathan’s was not always an expressive face, but Duke had always been able to read him, and now they were spending more and more time together his moods were only becoming clearer. Duke pulled back the covers and got into bed to sit beside Nathan. "What's up?" Duke asked.

Nathan shrugged a deflated shrug. "Just … I wish Audrey were here. I mean … I don't mean …" he added quickly, suddenly flustered at the potential implication that Duke wasn’t enough.

"I know what you mean," Duke assured him. "I wish Audrey were here too."

They rearranged their pillows and lay down facing each other, neither of them ready for sleep.

"I'd love to've watched you two together," Nathan told him.

"I'd have loved that too," Duke replied earnestly.

"What do you think she was like? In bed?" Nathan asked quietly.

"Decisive," suggested Duke. "Bossy."

"In a good way," agreed Nathan.

"In a very good way," confirmed Duke as they shifted a little closer together. "She'd know what she liked and she wouldn't be afraid to ask for it. To tell us what she wanted."

"I would love that. Learning the best ways to make her feel good. Doing what she told us."

It was hard to say who moved first then, the both of them reaching towards the other's crotch. There wasn't much in the way of clothing to deal with and they soon stroked each other to full hardness.

"I bet she'd be really good at knowing what we liked; she can read people so well," Duke said, already sounding slightly breathless. "She'd know without being told that you'd like to watch and I'd like being watched. She'd tell you to wait as she straddled me, and between the feel of her and your eyes on us I probably wouldn't even last two minutes."

Their hands moved more quickly now, stroking each other in a loosely matched rhythm.

"What kind of sex you think she'd like?" Nathan asked through a gasp with closed eyes as he lost himself in the fantasy.

"She'd like to be on top," Duke suggested, voice gone low. "She'd like to set the pace."

"She'd look so beautiful moving over you like that. And I could touch her," Nathan realised, his sentence turning into a moan.

"If she let you. You're meant to be watching remember?" 

"Sometimes. Sometimes I'd watch and sometimes I'd join in. Run my fingers down her spine. Kneel between your legs to kiss the back of her neck. Take her breasts in my hands. If she wanted I'd press my fingers down between her legs. Feel her hips move as you push into her."

They both gasped a little at the thought of that. 

"Between us we'd make her come," Duke said in a whisper.

They didn't say anything more after that. They kissed until it got too much, and then they held themselves close together, foreheads touching as their hands worked quicker and quicker. They soon spilled their climax onto each other's stomachs, both feeling the absence of the woman they loved even as they came.


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _Previously, in this fic:_ Duke and Nathan continued to find comfort in each other, in the face of their grief over Audrey, and to lean on each other as they plan for her return.

"Officer Rafferty, you got a minute?"

"Sure Chief."

Nathan led them back into his office. "Take a seat."

"Everything OK?" Rafferty asked as she sat down.

"Yes, nothing to worry about. Are you well, you and your family?"

"Yes, thank you."

"Have you heard of the Troubles?" Nathan got to the point with a phrase he felt was only going to become more and more familiar in the coming years.

Rafferty looked a little alarmed. "I thought that was all over."

"For now, it is, yes. But we think, in 27 years, it will start again."

"27 years?"

"Wouldn't blame you if you wanted to factor it into your retirement planning."

Rafferty laughed, surprised.

"It's a long time but we want to try and prepare. Get as much information together as we can so there's less work to do next time." 

Rafferty nodded, "That makes sense." 

"It'll mean building some relationships with the Guard and any remaining supporters of Reverend Driscoll, so the town can hopefuly be more united. And we're speaking to the Teagues about the Herald and the information in their archives."

"Who is 'we' exactly?" asked Rafferty.

"Duke Crocker. It was his idea. And a lot of this information's stuff that can't go in any official report. Sometimes the solutions need to be less official too. This is related to police work but it's not strictly a police project, not officially. I'd like you to help with the information gathering, if you're interested. It would be a mix of using police resources here when it's quiet, and working with us out of hours - we're using the apartment above the Grey Gull."

Rafferty nodded, looking thoughtful. "Who else is involved?"

"So far? No one. We need to keep it small. Haven holding onto its secrets so tightly for generations has caused its own problems, but there’s been good reasons behind it. If we put the reality into official reports we'd be overwhelmed with half a dozen different federal agencies within a week. Don't think that would help anyone."

"No," she agreed thoughtfully. "Why me?"

"You're good at your job. And you know this town. And I think you've seen enough of what the Troubles can do to understand how we need to approach this. But this project is strictly voluntary; it won't affect your career with HPD if you decline. We’d manage your hours and your workload here so you’re not overloaded - it’s likely to be an ongoing project for 27 years and more. Take a few days to think about it. If you're interested, we'll talk more about the details of how to make it work next week."


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _Previously, in this fic:_ As part of their plans for the next round of Troubles, Nathan spoke to Officer Rafferty about helping them with their research.

“Know anything about boilers?” Nathan asked in frustration, throwing a screwdriver back into the toolbox.

“Hello to you too,” replied Duke.

“Sorry,” Nathan apologised with a kiss on Duke’s cheek.

“Let me take a look,” offered Duke.

Nathan stepped back to make way for Duke and as he did so his phone buzzed with a call from the station. While he was talking through an issue urgent enough to demand he finish the conversation but thankfully not life-threatening enough to disrupt their dinner plans, Duke disappeared outside briefly to his truck and came back to the boiler. Nathan glanced over once to see bits of it on show he’d never seen before, but by the time he was hanging up Duke was screwing the front back on and it was firing happily back into life.

“Should be fine for a while, though you might want to get it serviced before too long,” Duke told him.

Nathan stared at him. “Thanks. That’s great,” he said with feeling.

Duke shrugged. “It was just the seal on the intake. You spend time out on the ocean on your own, you learn to fix stuff,” he added in response to Nathan’s expression. “Especially stuff that leaks.”

“You’re amazing,” said Nathan.

“You’re welcome but it was just a …”

Nathan cut him off with an emphatic shake of the head. “No. You are amazing. Not just this boiler now but the way you learned it. Travelling the world. The things you’ve seen and done. How many languages do you speak?” he added to try and prove his point.

“Fluently?”

“You see? So many you have to stop and think about it! That’s amazing. You’ve done amazing things because you’re an amazing person. When I was a kid, being a cop seemed like the coolest thing in the world. A badge and a gun and the power to help people. But you, you’ve done stuff much cooler than that and all without any backup. You never let the rules most people live by slow you down.”

Duke, struggling slightly to marshall a response to all this, latched on to the final point. “I guess I just always found that rules only ever got in the way. Rules were a hindrance in my experience, they never led to anything good. My Dad’s or the school’s or DCS or … laws about anything. No one’s rules ever helped me.  _ People  _ helped me. You - sometimes, when we weren’t arguing - Julia, Gloria, a few neighbours, my aunt for a while. Garland even tried once or twice in his own ineffectual way. Seeing the  _ loopholes  _ in the rules, and seeing the way people see things; that helped me. Plus, a good toolbox,” he added, looking down at Nathan’s “This is shameful Nathan Wuornos, what is that,  _ one  _ wrench?”

“That’s not enough?” Nathan replied, half joking.

“No that’s not enough!” Duke replied outraged, then turned and saw Nathan’s subtle little smile. “Oh, funny. What do you usually do when things break?”

“Buy new things?” Nathan suggested. Duke floundered for an adequate response to this fresh outrage, but before he could reply Nathan spoke again. “I’m glad there were people helping you. And sorry I wasn’t one of them often enough. You had a lot to deal with. If I hadn’t been so busy trying to hate you maybe I could have helped more.”

“Yeah and if I hadn’t been so irresistible maybe hating me wouldn’t have been such an effort,” Duke joked with a smirk.

Nathan just shook his head at him and put the tool box away. “Come on, let’s go. I’ll buy you dinner to say thank you for the boiler.”


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As Duke and Nathan work on their preparations for the next round of Troubles, some conversations are more emotionally demanding than others.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _Previously, in this fic:_ In between their preparations for the next round of Troubles, Duke fixed Nathan's boiler and Nathan told him how amazing he is.

"Aren't these the same files you use at the station?" asked Duke, amused. The pack of light-brown folded cardboard sat on what had been Audrey's dining table, next to some labelled ones filled with paperwork.

"Stationary order came in today," Nathan replied. "No one'll miss'em."

"Are you  _ sure _ you're a cop?"

One corner of Nathan's mouth flicked upwards in a little lopsided smile for a moment. "Putting together files on some key people to keep track of; some of the Rev's men, the Guard, Vince and Dave. And us. Need to record everything, even stuff that seems obvious."

"Yeah, makes sense," agreed Duke. "This one doesn't have a name," he pointed out, reaching towards a thin folder at the side of the main pile.

Nathan reached out a hand to stop him, "That's … um, your daughter."

“Oh hell,” replied Duke and sat down heavily in the nearest chair.

“Sorry.”

“It’s not your fault. You saved my life as I recall.”

“Guessing you don’t want to get in touch with her?” Nathan asked carefully.

There was a long pause during which Duke stared out the window. “I think that one of the worst things a person can do is choose to become a parent when they know they’re not ready for it,” he replied finally. “If it weren’t for the Troubles …” he began, then shook his head. “No. Even then. I’m not .... no. As it is, she’s with a good family, and she’s  _ safe _ ." 

Duke paused and Nathan told him, "She is. Made a couple follow up calls today. Very happy family by all accounts."

"Good, that's good."

"Figure I'll check in again every few years or so. Let you know if anything changes."

"Yeah. Thanks. Don't tell me about it otherwise though OK? As long as she's safe and happy there, it's better that she stays with them. She’s settled and she’s well shot of all of this,” Duke said with feeling, waving his hand around him in a way that encompassed much more than the room they were in. “The Troubles, the Guard, all of it. What would be the sense in dragging her back into a situation where the Guard might get a hold of her? Even if she doesn't have my Trouble, I wouldn't put it past them using her to get to me. I wouldn't want to do that to anyone," he finished firmly.

Nathan nodded. He didn’t have any argument to make against any of that.

“Anyway, presumably she has Beattie’s Trouble,” Duke added. “Which probably means she doesn’t have mine. So in terms of the Curse, she might not really be a Crocker at all.”

“That’s a good point. Should list her under both Crocker and Mitchell Troubles, in case. Might be in 27 years we have to let her know how Beattie’s works."

"Yeah," replied Duke heavily. "Let's cross that bridge when we come to it."

"You OK?" Nathan asked softly.

Duke nodded slowly.

"You know it's not your fault, right? Not Beattie's fault either for that matter. It was just the way the Trouble worked, what the Trouble did to you. You couldn't have done anything differently."

"Yeah,” said Duke with a sigh and ran his hands through his hair. “It is nice to be reminded of it though," he added after a moment.

Nathan squeezed his hand. "There is a more immediate practical issue if you'd like a distraction?"

"What's that?"

"We should think about security in here. Some of this information in the wrong hands could be …"

"Fairly disastrous in at least several different ways," Duke quickly agreed. He looked around them. "Shutters on the windows, better locks on the doors, an alarm system and CCTV. I'll set it up."

"Sounds good, thanks. No immediate hurry for a few files, but once we start building this up it could become an issue. I'll get some filing cabinets sorted out. We might need to move some furniture around. Figure we'll keep the bed though, in case anyone needs somewhere to stay."

Duke didn't comment on the unspoken implication that the particular 'anyone' Nathan was worried about was the next woman who would come to help them; Prudence or Lexie or whatever her name turned out to be. "Yeah," Duke said. "Makes sense. Push it further into the corner, move this table and the sofa the other way a bit, and there should be plenty of space in the middle for filing cabinets."

Nodding, Nathan asked, "You got time to help me move a few things around now?"

Duke squeezed Nathan’s hand back. “Sure.”


	21. Chapter 21

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fluffy, fluffy fluff

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _Previously, in this fic:_ With Audrey gone into the Barn (in an alternative ending to season three) and the Troubles in the dormant phase of their 27 year cycle, in between working on preparing for the next time impossible things start happening, Nathan and Duke are also building themselves a life together.

Duke got up and started his day as he always did, with yoga. Today the weather was warm and dry enough that he could roll his mat out on the deck of the Rouge, which was always the best place for it. It was early enough that it was quiet, there was no expectation of any drama, paranormal or otherwise, and later he would see Nathan. He was rested, warm, safe and relaxed. Today was a good day.

It was also, co-incidentally, his birthday, but he didn't really expect that to have much impact on the day. There had never been much note of his birthdays when he was a kid, and for much of his life a date of birth had simply been an unwelcome way for official types to identify him. He hadn't talked with Nathan about it, it was possible in fact that Nathan didn't even realise it was his birthday today. And that was fine. As long as the day continued in the same happy relaxed fashion and no disasters befell him or the town he would be happy.

After yoga and a shower he made his way into town for some errands and stopped at Rosemary's for a pastry and coffee, the same way he did most days.

"You have a good day now," Rosemary told him as she handed him his change, somehow making it sound a lot more meaningful than usual. Duke looked at her but she just smiled. When he got outside he found the bag contained an extra pastry he hadn't ordered. He half turned to go back and tell her, then decided to just take the good fortune.

When he got to the Gull, he could see Tracy was already there, way before her shift was due to start. So he was surprised to find that when he went to open the door it didn't budge. And then Tracy was there opening it, but rather than welcoming him in as he'd expected, was shooing him outside. "I am under strict instructions not to let you in here but to send you upstairs to your boyfriend," she told him firmly.

"What …?" he began, but she just pointed to the stairs. He half-turned towards them. "This is still my bar?" he asked, bemused. If the Troubles had still been active he'd have worried this was the start of one.

"Everything is under control," she told him. "Joe will be here in a minute, we're all covered. You're to go upstairs. Up!" pointing again.

Feeling like he was in some odd kind of dream, Duke turned and made his way up the stairs to the old store-room-turned-apartment that was now functioning more as an office. He opened the door expecting to find Nathan at the dining-table-turned-desk, or possibly on the sofa. 

What he actually found, was Nathan in the kitchen and - more surprising still - it was clear he'd been there for a while. The kitchen was getting much more use than usual; there were ingredients and implements everywhere (some of them obviously borrowed from downstairs), it was warm from the heat of the oven, Nathan had flour in his hair, and in the middle of the slight feeling of barely-contained chaos sat an absolutely beautiful cake.

"Happy Birthday!" 

Duke just stood and stared. Nathan didn’t bake. Nathan didn’t cook at all, as far as Duke was aware, making a rare exception only for pancakes. He shopped and he cleaned, he assembled sandwiches and heated things when needed to keep himself fed. But he didn’t  _ bake _ .

So long did Duke stand there saying nothing that Nathan moved towards him, concerned. "You alright?"

"You made me a cake?" Duke asked in disbelief, struggling to reconcile the clear evidence on display in front of him with the clear expectations he’d had for the day.

"From scratch," Nathan confirmed. "For your party later."

"Party?"

"Downstairs. We're…"

"No, there's a group booked in …"

"The 'Maine Bird Watchers Society'? No." Duke gaped at him and Nathan continued. "That's the cover story for your birthday party. There are no customers booked in the restaurant tonight, and you have the day off."

"But … I need to …" Duke began feebly.

"No, you don't. Tracy and Joe have everything under control."

"But …"

"Duke," Nathan began, softly but firmly as he stepped into Duke's space. "We've been planning this for a while. Everything's organised. All the guests tonight are contributing the price of a meal so the business doesn't lose out. Rosemary taught me to bake. I know what it feels like to get ambushed," he added. "Remember when you came into the station to drag me up here and clear out Audrey's things? You did me a big favour that day, in so many ways. Let me repay it. At least a little."

Duke's eyes flicked over Nathan's sincere, hopeful face. He had done himself a favour that day too, and not just because it had eventually led to an unexpected birthday cake. He pulled Nathan close for a long, intense kiss, trying to get across all the emotions he didn't have the words for right now. Eventually he pulled away, and looked again at the scene in front of him. "Rosemary taught you to bake. I  _ thought _ there was something going on with her earlier."

Nathan nodded. "Took a while but I got it eventually. Was finally declared fit to be let loose in a kitchen on my own. Had to bring some stuff up from downstairs but I'll ..." Nathan's sentence got lost in a kiss as Duke pulled him close again.

"You've got frosting on your cheek."

Nathan wiped his cheek, but it was the wrong one. Suspecting that Nathan in fact knew exactly where the frosting was, Duke reached up and swiped at it with a finger, then licked it clean. "That's good frosting," he said appreciatively. Rich and chocolately with a hint of something else he couldn’t place just yet; it was more-ish without being two sweet.

"Made some cupcakes too if you want a sample. We're cutting this one tonight," he confirmed with a nod at the generously-sized cake that sat in the middle of the table. The frosting was smoothed carefully over it, some kind of syrup dripped down the sides and plenty of chocolate shavings (in milk, dark and white) decorated the top.

"Rosemary taught you to  _ decorate _ cakes too," Duke noted. "It looks professional."

Nathan nodded. "She's a good teacher. Tried to tell her to set up some kind of culinary school but she didn't want to give away all her secrets." Nathan handed him a cupcake. "It's the same recipe - Rosemary’s recipe. And before you say it, yes I really did do all this myself."

Duke's eyes widened as he took a bite of cupcake. "She  _ is _ a good teacher.” The cake was more coffee than chocolate and that, Duke realised suddenly, was what the hint in the frosting was; coffee. 

"Would have filmed the whole thing as evidence but I'm sworn to secrecy," Nathan continued. 

Duke's surprise took on an edge of mild outrage, "She … _told_ _you_ _her_ _secret_?! I can’t ... What -?" 

"One of many," Nathan clarified. "I’m sworn to secrecy."

"But -"

Nathan shook his head solemnly. "Sworn to secrecy. Wasn't given any restrictions on how often I can use it though."

Duke took another bite. Like the frosting, the cake was rich without being cloying and it wasn’t just any coffee; he looked around and spotted the edge of a bottle of Kahlùa on the other side of the room. “Make this often enough and I might forgive you," he allowed. “The chocolate with a hint of coffee frosting, and the coffee with a hint of chocolate cake are the perfect balance. Why did you bake here and not at home?”

“Seemed like the best way to surprise you. And easier to get it into the Gull for later.”

"Have I really got the day off?" asked Duke, bouncing from one question to another.

Nathan nodded.

"I wasn't sure you'd even know when my birthday is." 

Nathan scratched his head, suddenly self conscious. "Wasn't sure. Looked it up," he admitted.

Duke stared at him for a moment then laughed, "Well it's nice to know police records have their uses occasionally." He finished the cupcake and dusted some of the flour from Nathan’s hair. “So seeing as my plans for the day are apparently not happening, did you have some plans of your own?”

"Couple options," Nathan began. "Bit of a drive but there's …"

Duke stepped up to him again, hands on Nathan's hips, "Any of them involve me licking frosting off your -"

Nathan grinned and pulled him closer, but carried on with his sentence, cutting Duke’s off, "... an exhibit up state with art and stories from when smugglers used sailing ships and pirates buried their treasure." He pulled a slightly crumpled leaflet out of a pocket:  _ Smugglers and Pirates across the world and throughout history; legends, artifacts and artworks _ . "Some of these photos remind me of stuff in the Rouge; art and maps from all over," Nathan said, and pointed at the dates that showed it ran for another few weeks. "Or, there's a picnic lunch waiting for us at Rosemary's, take that and the cupcakes, walk up the coast, find some quiet spot of beach and hang out."

"This sounds really interesting," replied Duke, looking over the leaflet in surprise, touched at the level of thought that had obviously gone into this. He glanced out the window. "But we've lost some driving time already and the weather’s gorgeous. I say we do the picnic thing today. Maybe we can do the exhibit another time? Tomorrow, if you're free?"

Nathan nodded. "Absolutely, good plan. I'll just tidy a couple things," he began, though his sentence trailed off slightly as he looked around the kitchen, as though noticing the full extent of the mess for the first time.

Duke pulled him back close, kissed him and bumped their hips together. "Of course, I'm still considering licking frosting off you as a plan A."

"There ... um, is some spare," replied Nathan, happy to be distracted from cleaning. "In the fridge."

Duke grinned and reached for Nathan's belt. "The picnic can wait," he said.

-

The party that night was a roaring success. The cake made it down the stairs and into the Gull without incident, and was set up in pride of place on the bar where it was much admired by all until Nathan finally agreed it was time to cut it.

Everyone Nathan had invited turned up, even those from out of town, and Duke was repeatedly surprised by the faces he saw and spoke to, from Bill McShaw to Julia Carr, to newer friends he hadn't even realised Nathan knew.

The alcohol flowed at just the right rate to make sure people had a good time, the weather was just warm enough for the crowd to spread out through the open doors onto the decking, and there were just enough people to ensure plenty of conversation.

The cake when it was finally cut was as delicious as it looked, even Rosemary coming back for a second slice.

And, if anyone happened to notice the flush to Nathan’s cheeks whenever the frosting was mentioned, or the way he developed a tendency to stutter when asked about how him and Duke had spent their afternoon, well … everyone was too much polite to comment on it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (I completely invented the exhibition.)


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _Previously, in this fic:_ With Audrey gone into the Barn (in an alternative ending to season three) and the Troubles in the dormant phase of their 27 year cycle, Duke and Nathan are working on preparing for the next time impossible things start happening, and also building themselves a life together.

Duke's journal:

~

We made some progress with Vince and Dave today. Well, progress of a kind. They showed us their filing system, or rather their complete lack of a filing system, for their unofficial archives. The official Haven Herald stuff is mostly computerised and therefore fairly searchable. The unofficial records they've gathered and kept and made are very much not. 

There's more of it than I'd realised, all crammed into a back room at the Herald I hadn't even known was there. Like I said, they keep their secrets well those boys. Nominally the Herald has a back room with a printing press and filing cabinets, if you pay attention you notice another off it that's mostly full of broken typewriters and rusty tandem bikes. Turns out there's another one off that, through a door hidden in a corner behind a shelf of unidentifiable pieces of equipment from some antique contraption or another.

This extra back room is stuffed full of journals and notebooks, old maps, ancient published books, rolls of paper - god knows where half of it came from, some of it looks like it's been there since Haven was founded.

They claimed to know where every single thing was and exactly how it was all organised but when we asked them to explain their system to us they suddenly got very quiet.

It doesn't matter though. They've shown it to us, that's the main thing, and we're working on a way to make sure we have access to it once they're gone, whatever happens to the Herald as a business; there's no answer on that yet, but hopefully we still have some time.

~


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _Previously, in this fic:_ With Audrey gone into the Barn (in an alternative ending to season three) and the Troubles in the dormant phase of their 27 year cycle, Duke and Nathan are working on preparing for the next time impossible things start happening, including by trying to finally get some straight answers out of the Teagues brothers.

Nathan's journal:

~

If I thought Vince and Dave were holding out on us before, I was still surprised to see exactly how much stuff they have hidden away in the back of the Herald. Hopefully, by the time you're reading this it will have been relocated, but I'll sketch out it's location on the next page - it’s just a room but it’s surprisingly well hidden. Or perhaps not so surprising, given we’re talking about the Teagues.

None of it seems to be in any sort of order, but they’ve said they'll pick out some of the most useful stuff for us to look at first. Dave's going to go through a journal by some guy named Cabot he thinks might be worth reading again. Vince implied there might be something that would tell us more about the history of the Guard.

The biggest question right now is what happens to all this stuff - and the Haven Herald itself - when Vince and Dave pass on. We're trying to sort out some sort of community organisation. Seems it’s been done before; communities taking over some key local business when the owners have gone. If we can make that work, there’d be some continuity for the paper and for all these records. The question is just what the organisation should be. Vince obviously thinks the Guard is the most sensible choice. Duke hates that idea. Dave is strangely silent on the subject. I think we need something more neutral, something new. Something that speaks not just for the Troubled but for everyone in Haven. The Guard has it's uses but it can be divisive. We need to bring people together; all the residents of Haven. A residents association maybe?

We’ll keep working on it.

~


	24. Chapter 24

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _Previously, in this fic:_ With Audrey gone into the Barn (in an alternative ending to season three) and the Troubles in the dormant phase of their 27 year cycle, Duke and Nathan are working on preparing for the next time impossible things start happening, including by trying to get some straight answers out of the Teagues brothers and planning for what will happen to the Haven Herald when they are gone.

"So we're all agreed," Nathan said, his tone of voice turning the potential question into more of an insistence that it be so. The four faces around the table nodded glumly at him. No one was particuarly keen on the plan, himself icluded, but it remained the best idea they had, and he didn’t want to put it off any longer - Vince and Dave were still fit and active for now, but their age was starting to show. There were moments when he noticed a frailness about them he’d never seen before. "We'll get the paperwork drawn up to create a residents association as a community organisation, the five of us will be named as trustees, and the ownership of the Herald will be transferred to it; the business, this building and all its contents," Nathan confirmed.

"Can't believe I'll be an official good citizen," muttered Duke, shaking his head to himself.

"I'm still concerned about the potential for conflict and complications with the Guard, but it's the best way we have to provide some stability for the town," Dwight offered his reluctant confirmation.

"Feels like another work load but we need something to support everyone and bring the town together. We can't have the Rev’s men stirring up divisions again," insisted Nathan.

Vince and Dave just looked at each other. All of these doubts and concerns (and many more besides) had been discussed time and time again already. There was nothing more to be said.

"All that's missing is a name," Dave pointed out.

This surprised Nathan. “‘Haven Residents’ Association’ not good enough?” he asked.

Dave shifted his head as though to say,  _ Sure, if you like, if you have absolutely no imagination or creative flair whatsoever. _

“HARA?” suggested Vince, turning the HAven Residents Assocation into a prounanceable acronym.

“Community And Residents Association of Haven,” Duke suggested after a moment. “CARAH.”

Dave nodded a surprised head at him. “That’s not bad.”

“Dwight?” Nathan asked.

Dwight shrugged. “Fine by me. We should add more trustees though, at some point. If it’s going to represent the town then we need a more representative group of people. It shouldn’t be all men, for one thing.”

“Rafferty’s one possibility, but might not be the best idea to have too many police,” Nathan said.

“Maybe someone from the hospital or the school. Cover different sections of the community,” Dave suggested.

“How about Gloria?” suggested Duke. “Or, what's Vickie doing now? She's teaching an art class I think?”

“Don’t think Gloria’d be up for it, but Vickie might be,” Nathan agreed. “Would be good to also have someone who isn’t Troubled.”

There was a beat of thoughtful silence then Duke clicked his fingers. “Rosemary. Pillar of the community; everyone knows Rosemary, she must get all the gossip.”

“She’s not Troubled as far as I know,” offered Vince.

Dwight agreed but added, “Does she know about them?”

“She saw my tattoo when I rolled my sleeves up in her kitchen. Pretty sure she knew what it means. I’ll talk to her,” Nathan said.

“I can talk to Gloria,” Duke offered.

“Guess that means I’ll speak to Vickie,” said Dwight.


	25. Chapter 25

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _Previously, in this fic:_ With Audrey gone into the Barn (in an alternative ending to season three) and the Troubles in the dormant phase of their 27 year cycle, Duke and Nathan are working on preparing for the next time impossible things start happening. This has included trying to get some straight answers out of the Teagues, and founding a residents association with them and Dwight to take over the running of the Herald once Vince and Dave are no longer around.

It was a Tuesday afternoon somewhere near the end of January and it was predictably quiet in the Gull. There were a couple of regulars at their usual table, an extended family celebrating the birthday of an awkward teenager, and a couple of people Duke couldn't make out at all. They looked like tourists, but Haven didn't get many of those in January, and the ones that did come tended to be hardened hikers. These didn't look like the kind to bother with an out of the way fishing village in winter when nothing was going on. One of them was making a start on the day's special at the far end of the bar, the other was (unfortunately) attempting to engage him in conversation.

"This place could be a real money spinner if you do it up right."

"Is that so?" Duke replied non-committedly and looked away. He found these kinds of people incredibly annoying. People from LA or New York or somewhere that meant they thought they knew more about business than him. Hell, maybe they even did - but they didn't know about his kind of business, either the kind he ran out of the Rouge or the kind he ran at the Gull. And they didn't know a thing about Haven.

But the guy was oblivious to the fact that Duke wasn't interested, and carried on talking. "Oh yeah, definitely. Put a big screen up for the sports…" he stumbled a little at this as he looked round at all the windows and found no patch of wall big eough for one, but railied and carried on regardless, "... tidy the place up, give everything a fresh coat of paint, get rid of the …" he squinted upwards, "... whatever the hell that is hanging from the ceiling. And sort the menu out," he added with a decisive nod towards the Specials board. "What even is that?"

Duke sighed. The special this week was a fusion of three different culinary traditions, he was proud of it and it was proving very popular. Getting rid of the guy would be easy. Getting rid of him in a way consistent with good customer service was more complicated. 

"It's delicious, is what it is." This unexpected contribution came from the other possible-tourist who was eating at the far end of the bar. She said it defiantly, like she was aware she was stepping into someone else's argument, but was apparently unable to let the insult to good food go. She was pretty in a slightly delicate, girly kind of way, a few years younger than him, and tiny. The point being; she didn't look like she was used to stepping into other people's arguments. But she had stood up for the quality of his food anyway. Duke grinned at her, and the guy frowned, annoyed.

"Disconcerting eating in the middle of all of this junk though right?" he suggested, waving his hand around at the old fishing weights and floats on the ceiling that had so offended him. "You only came in here because you couldn't find anything else, right?"

The woman frowned back. "I came in here because it was recommended to me, and I stayed because it looked so welcoming." She looked around her, "There's a lot of character in here, it has personality. You know? Like, if these walls could talk I bet they'd have some  _ amazing _ stories to tell."

_ Yeah let's hope we never find out _ , thought Duke.

"It'd be a crime to clear it all out and make everything all tidy and shiny," she finished, and the guy huffed and turned away from her.

"Did you want to order?" asked Duke, pointedly ignoring the half-glass of beer in front of him.

He huffed again, tossed a bill on the bar (just enough to cover the cost of what he'd had) and left. 

Duke breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank you," he said to the woman. "What are you drinking? On the house."

She shook her head though, "I don't drink."

"Well how about -" Duke was interrupted by the ringing of the phone. "Oh, excuse me."

-

"Sure," Jennifer watched the landlord of the charming little bar turn away to answer the phone. She hadn't been exaggerating, the food really was delicious and the place felt much more welcoming than it had any real right to. Almost everything she'd seen in Haven so far was pretty in fact, and the Grey Gull was no exception. 

She wasn't here to admire the scenery though, and she turned back to her notebook and thoughts of how she was going to tackle the task ahead of her. Already it felt a little more daunting than expected. As a journalist, she was used to research. But this was a lot more personal.

-

The phone call took Duke to the store room and then the office, and by the time he was done with that there was a delivery outside to bring in. He helped the driver unload the heavy crates of wine onto the deck outside and then once the truck was gone Duke propped the door open to start carrying them inside. 

He picked up the last crate and stepped towards the door only to have a gust of wind slam it shut in his face. He sighed and was about to put the crate down to prop it open again but then it was opening for him. "Thank you!" he said, pleasantly surprised that the same woman from earlier had come to his rescue again. 

"Well I heard it slam shut and those look heavy," she replied, stepping out of the way to let him in. 

He put it down on the bar as she took her seat again. "Now you've come to my rescue twice in one afternoon, that definitely warrants some kind of reward. Dessert, on the house?" Duke offered. "There's cake, fresh from the best baker in town, or cheesecake, fresh from our own kitchen."

She resisted for a moment before giving in. "You've found my weakness. I cannot turn down cheesecake."

"Coming right up!" Duke replied happily.

The cheesecake was delayed by the birthday teenager's family asking for the check, and by the time he was done with that the place was even quieter. He returned with the dessert and returned to the crate of wine. There were a few minutes of surprisngly-companionable quiet as she ate and he unpacked the bottles.

"First time in Haven?" he asked after a while, gratified to see she was still enjoying the food.

She nodded around a mouthful of cheesecake. "First time in Maine. That I remember," she added.

"You're not on vacation," Duke realised.

"No," she agreed. "I'm looking into my adoption."

Duke's mood took a sudden shift as he got a small inkling of how he might feel if she was the right age to be … Well, she wasn't, he reminded himself firmly. It would be a long time yet before Jean was old enough to be sitting at a bar and turning down drinks. "Sorry," he offered.

"Oh, no, it's fine," she replied happily. "I always knew I was adopted. Sometimes it has to be done, right? Sometimes it's the best thing. My parents were great, my adoptive parents I mean. I'm just … curious. There seems to be some odd gaps in my paperwork. I'm just hoping to … finish the story."

_ Sometimes it's the best thing. _ Duke nodded, surprised by how much he valued hearing that sentiment, and tried to think of something to say.

"Anyway, I've got to be going. Thanks for the food it really was all delicious." She put some money on the bar in front of him, gathered up her things and left. It wasn't until she was gone that Duke realised she'd paid for her cheesecake after all.


	26. Chapter 26

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _Previously, in this fic:_ With Audrey gone into the Barn (in an alternative ending to season three) and the Troubles in the dormant phase of their 27 year cycle, Duke and Nathan are working on preparing for the next round of Troubles by, amongst other things, cataloguing all the information they can get their hands on (including the dis-organised archives at the Herald), and forming a residents association with the Teagues and Dwight to take over the running of the Herald once Vince and Dave have passed on.

It was quiet in the offices of the Haven Herald. Vince and Dave were putting the finishing touches to the next edition, but they had plenty of time until their deadline. They had a lot of experience, they were good at their jobs, and it helped as well that Haven was now the kind of quiet little town where the biggest news of the day might be someone parking in the wrong place.

Dave sighed and took off his glasses to rub his eyes. Vince looked up, expecting Dave to speak, and after a moment, he did. "I think it's the best way," he said, going over a conclusion they had come to before. "I wouldn't want the place sold to some faceless corporation from out of town."

"No," agreed Vince with a slight shiver of distaste.

"They're not newspapermen but they know Haven," he added, meaning,  _ They know the Troubles. _

"They'll find someone," Vince suggested, still confident there was a Troubled journalist out there somewhere who could take over the production of the paper. "It's not so important until the next round of Troubles; they've got some time."

There was a moment of silence then during which Dave looked into the middle distance and Vince waited for whatever it was that he actually wanted to say.

"I'm going to write some letters," Dave said. "To leave with them. And if I should happen to pass before you, I'd appreciate you not reading any that aren't addressed to you."

"Dave," replied Vince, a little exasperated. "If you've passed on, do you really think I'm going to be interested in reading  _ letters _ ."

Dave, eyes a little blurry without his glasses, reached his hand across the table and for a moment they clasped their fingers together, as tightly as either of them had the strength for; as tightly as their lives were bound together.

"If you're gone I won't be far behind," Vince added as they let go. "I don't mean … deliberately!" he said with exasperation in response to Dave's slightly alarmed expression. "But I can't imagine my old heart would want to keep me in this world very long if you'd already left it."

Dave nodded, part-touched, part-sad. "I don't suppose I'd be any different," he said after a moment.

"Well then," said Vince with a note of finality, as though they had said everything two people ever could say to each other. "Let's get this edition wrapped up. We're supposed to be showing the boys the accounts tomorrow."

Dave put his glasses back on, and an atmosphere of comfortable silence settled back over the office as the two brothers put the final words of the latest edition of the Haven Herald into place.


	27. Chapter 27

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _Previously, in this fic_ : With Audrey gone into the Barn (in an alternative ending to season three) and the Troubles in the dormant phase of their 27 year cycle, Duke and Nathan are working on preparing for the next round of Troubles by, amongst other things, cataloguing all the information they can get their hands on (including the dis-organised archives at the Herald), and forming a residents association with Dwight which will take over the running of the Herald once Vince and Dave have passed on.

Nathan pushed open the door to the Haven Herald, laughing at the end of Duke’s story from his time in Goa. Vince was behind the counter and he looked up as they came in, taking in Nathan’s smile with a look Nathan couldn’t place at all. Just as Nathan was about to say … something, Dave came walking up to them from the back room, talking to someone following him.

“I’m sorry we couldn’t be of more help. If those other records turn up I’ll let you know,” he said as they drew level with the others.

“Oh thank you yes, let me give you my card so you can reach me,” the woman following him put a folder down on the counter as she looked in her bag. “Or I’m staying at the B&B up on the hill, it’s a pretty little place do you - Oh, hello!” she interrupted herself as she looked up and saw the two new arrivals, or more specifically, Duke.

“Hello!” Duke replied. “Don’t I owe you a cheesecake?”

The three other men looked at him in surprise.

“I never got your name though,” Duke added, ignoring their reactions. “I’m Duke.”

“Jennifer,” she said, finally finding what she was looking for in her bag and pulling out a business card that she handed to Dave. “Jennifer Mason.”

“Journalist at the Boston Globe,” Dave told them, looking at the card.

“Well I’m not really here in a professional capacity but that’s got my cell so if you do find those files we spoke about I’d love to - oh excuse me,” the cell phone in question chose that moment to buzz into life and she stepped to one side to take the call.

Duke felt the questioning looks of the other three men pressing him for some kind of explanation, “She came into the Gull yesterday, helped me out with an irritating customer and we got talking. I offered her a cheesecake on the house, but she left enough money to cover it anyway, so I kind of still owe her. It’s not a big deal.”

“It might be,” said Dave with feeling. After a quick glance behind him to where Jennifer was deep in animated conversation with someone it sounded like she would really rather not be talking to at all, Dave flicked open the cover of the folder she had put down. There, on the top of what looked like adoption paperwork, was a photo of Agent Howard. Except it wasn’t, not quite; the photo was older, but he wasn’t. He looked exactly the same age as when they’d known him even though, if it was a photo from when Jennifer was adopted, he must have been 30 years younger. All of them leaned forwards for a closer look, eyebrows shooting upwards with the surprise.

“She said she was here looking into her adoption,” Duke said quietly. “But it never occurred to me there could be a connection with -” Duke cut off his sentence and gave Dave a nod just in time to allow Dave to close up the folder again before Jennifer saw they’d been looking. 

“I’m going to have to go,” Jennifer told them, sounding annoyed. “That was a co-worker, it looks like I’m going to have to do more work on this trip than I thought. Thank you for your time Mr Teagues, maybe I can check in again in a few days in case anything else comes to mind?”

“Of course,” Dave replied happily. “And you should take Duke up the offer of that cheesecake - best around.”

“It was delicious, I might just do that later. But I really do need to go. Thanks again,” she added and Nathan held the door open for her as she left.

There was a moment of silence in the office as the four men listened to the sounds of her making her way down the stairs to the street.

“Well,” began Nathan.

“There’s more to this than you think,” Dave said, voice serious. “I didn’t tell you before, any of you, because I don’t know what it means and because … well because I was scared,” he admitted reluctantly. “But ... Agent Howard’s photo is in my adoption paperwork as well.”

“What?” cried Vince, surprised and outraged in equal measure that he had not been aware of this before.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Nathan asked.

“I just said I was scared. And I don’t know what it means. Something ...” Dave sighed. “I was going to put this all in a letter to leave for you. So that you would know before the next cycle. But something happened when the Colorado Kid died.”

“You were there?” asked Duke, surprised.

“I don’t know how, or why. I don’t remember what happened. I woke up on the beach, I don’t know how I got there. No one knows what happened, or how he died. That’s not normal, even for Haven,” Dave said sounding more distraught than any of them had ever heard him. “And in Cabot’s journal it talks about soft spots between worlds, portals to the void, places where bad things happen, where other-worldly creatures can come through to our side.”

“You think some creature from the void came through to kill the Colorado Kid?” Vince asked, bemused and concerned. 

“James’s killer might have come from another world?” Nathan repeated, stunned.

“I guess it’s no more crazy than a time-travelling barn that isn’t really a barn,” Duke suggested. 

Dave nodded, looking even more worried still as he built himself up to speak again. “I think James’s killer might be from another world. And ... I think I might be too.”

There was a moment of stunned silence while the three other men blinked at him.

“So you’re suggesting the friendly journalist from Boston is actually …?” Duke prompted.

“Well I don’t know, do I? That’s why I had to tell you now. She could be like me. She might have no idea. Or she could be like Audrey somehow. Or she could be …”

“A monster?” scoffed Vince. “She seemed pretty harmless to me.”

“That’s why you suggested she eat at the Gull again. See if Duke can get to know her,” Nathan realised. “Find out what she knows.”

Dave nodded. “And if she comes back again then I’ll try to talk to her too. She was looking for town hall records from around the time of her adoption. Records that I told her were lost but that we do actually have copies of, back there.”

“How did you manage to ‘lose’ them so convincingly when she was right there with you?” Nathan asked.

“There are some benefits to a complicated and unique filing system Nathan,” Vince told him, with barely-concealed smugness.

“The point is,” Dave interjected, “When she comes back, have I found them or are they still ‘lost’? And do I tell her that I recognised the photo in her file? Do I tell her that the same man was involved in my adoption under a different name and looking exactly the same as when we knew him even though it was 50 years earlier?”

“Not sure how you’d tell her all that without scaring her off,” Duke suggested.

“Or making her think that you’re insane,” Vince added. “That  _ we’re _ insane.”

“That’s assuming she doesn’t already know all about it,” Nathan said, in a suggestion that sobered them all. “She might know more about the Troubles than we do.”

“Is she looking for those records in the town hall as well?” Vince asked after a moment.

“She’s got an appointment there tomorrow," Dave confirmed.

“The Guard has someone there. I can make sure they fail to locate their copies as well,” Vince suggested. 

“Hang on a minute,” Duke objected. “If she’s just a journalist who doesn’t know anything about Haven, who are we to stop her researching her own adoption? Plus if her adoption is somehow connected to Dave’s she might actually find out something useful. Useful to us I mean, relevant to the Troubles. If we can get to know her she could actually help us.”

“And if she is some other worldly monster, it’d make sense to get close to her, try and find out how much she knows and what she’s up to,” Nathan agreed. “With the Troubles inactive any monster’s likely to be less of a threat now. I say you find your lost files, and don’t keep her from any public records at town hall,” he suggested to the Teagues. “Meantime we stay friendly and I’ll do a background check on her, just in case that throws up anything relevant.”

Vince and Dave nodded their agreement.

“I think it might be time to call in a favour from an old friend,” Duke said cryptically, and Nathan raised an eyebrow at him. “Nothing illegal, don’t worry,” he added.


	28. Chapter 28

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _Previously, in this fic_ : With Duke and Nathan working with Vince and Dave to prepare for the next round of Troubles, all of them were surprised to meet a friendly journalist from Boston with a photo of Agent Howard in her adoption paperwork. Prompted by this (and with reference to his own adoption paperwork and to Cabot's journal), Dave admitted his fears that he might somehow be either involved with The Colorado Kid's death, or have come from another world through the void. This lead to discussion of Jennifer's potential connection to the Troubles, with concerns raised as to whether she could even be the kind of otherwordly-creature that killed The Colorado Kid.

“You know, I still can’t quite get used to the idea you own this place,” she said, amused, as she walked up to the bar.

“Well hello to you too,” he replied, not entirely sure whether to take this as a compliment or insult. 

“Hey, you’re the one who asked me to come over. What am I doing here Duke?”

“Are you staying in town this time?” he asked.

“For now,” she agreed cautiously.

“Your Doctors Without Borders days are over then?”

“I don’t know about _over_. I’m taking a break.”

“Be careful then Julia, this town has a way of sucking people in - I never thought I was staying when I came back,” Duke told her.

“And look at you now! A respectable restaurant owner,” Julia teased, then changed to a more sincere tone to tell him, “It looks good on you. You look well.”

“Yeah it’s nice to see you too,” Duke replied. “What are you drinking? On the house.”

“OK seriously; what am I doing here?” asked Julia taking a seat at the bar. “You didn’t ask me to come round just so you could ask me if I’m here and give me alcohol.”

“I want to ask a favour. It’s an easy favour; you might even like it,” suggested Duke. He held up one of his more expensive bottles of wine in a question that she answered with a nod.

Much as that sounded kind of convincing, Julia didn’t feel particularly inclined to take it at face value, particularly given the hard sell of the free alcohol. “...but?” she asked.

“But the need for the favour relates to the Troubles and I know you wanted to get clear of all that,” Duke admitted, handing over the glass of wine.

“The Troubles are back?” asked Julia, alarmed.

“No, not at all. I mean, not yet. We’re expecting them around 2037.”

“That’s … what, 25 years away?” asked Julia, confused.

“About that, yes.”

“I don’t know if I’m going to be in town in 6 months and you’re asking me where I’m going to be in 25 years?” Julia shook her head and took a slightly larger gulp of wine that she’d really meant to. It was good though, so she took another sip.

“No,” Duke explained. “We’re preparing.”

“Preparing,” Julia echoed. “Now?”

“Don’t you think things would have been easier if they’d told us more? Vince and Dave, and Garland? Your mother? I mean I don’t want to talk ill of the dead and Eleanor was an amazing woman in a lot of ways but …”

“She didn’t share her secrets easily,” Julia admitted.

“And don’t you think it would have been easier for Audrey if she had? In 25 years time there will be another Audrey, and I don’t see why she should have to fight tooth and nail for every little bit of information she’ll need about what goes on in this town. So we - me and Nate - we’ve been talking to the Teagues and looking through the archives in the Herald. Trying to get organised.”

“That’s very commendable, but how does it relate to an easy favour for me?” Julia asked dubiously.

“There’s a journalist in town, from Boston. She was talking to the Teagues, we met her in the Herald earlier. She’s researching her adoption.”

Julia looked blankly at him and took another sip of wine.

“Thing is, her adoption paperwork has a photo of the man who arranged her adoption 30 years ago. A man who looks exactly the same as the Agent Howard who sent Audrey here. And, who looks exactly the same as the photo in Dave’s adoption paperwork. He looks _exactly_ the same Julia, from when we knew him and from when Dave was born. That’s not normal. And he was involved in Jennifer’s adoption too, so she might be connected to the Troubles too.”

“Wait, who’s Jennifer?”

“The journalist from Boston. She’s nice. That’s why the favour’s easy; you might even like her. She might be exactly your type,” Duke finished and smiled with what he hoped was his best persuasive grin.

“Now, hang on …”

“All I’m asking you to do is talk to her. It’s possible the adoption story’s just a cover and she knows all about the Troubles, but I don’t think she does. I think she’s just a woman trying to understand where she came from. Which may well be here. So we should make her feel welcome. Give her some friends in town. That’s all; just talk to her. She’s most likely coming in here to eat. I’ll introduce you; you chat. That’s it.”

“And are all my drinks on the house?”

“Sure.”

Julia looked at him dubiously.

“You might even like the chance to talk to a cute woman who knows what the world outside of Haven is like, I would have thought.”

Julia rolled her eyes and gave in. “How cute?”

“Approximately that cute,” said Duke quietly. He gave a subtle nod towards the doorway where Jennifer had just walked in and turned around behind him for a moment to give Julia the chance to see who he was talking about without it being obvious that they were both looking at her. 

When he turned back she gave him a look and just replied, “Fine.”

“Hey,” Duke called out to Jennifer.

“Hello,” she said heavily, and dropped her bag on the bar. “Please tell me you haven’t run out of cheesecake.”

“Bad day?” asked Duke.

“Oh just .... work. Some co-workers just make everything three times as complicated as it needs to be, you know?”

“I know that feeling,” offered Julia.

“Jennifer this is Julia, recently back in town after travelling across Africa with Doctors Without Borders.”

“Oh wow!” replied Jennifer. “That’s amazing!”

“Well … not exactly the whole of Africa,” replied Julia, aware that Duke was deliberating trying to make her sound good and not wanting to take too much advantage of his tendency to exaggerate.

“Well, still,” replied Jennifer, refusing to stop being impressed that easily. “You’ve still been there. I’ve hardly left the States.”

Duke put a menu on the bar in front of Jennifer, and one in front of Julia too. Then he turned away to deal with another customer, smiling to himself as he heard Julia launch into the beginnings of what could turn into a long conversation, “It is an amazing part of the world, and there’s so much variety …”

The Gull got unexpectedly busy for a while. Every time Duke glanced over to Jennifer and Julia they seemed to be having a pleasant conversation and every time he started to go over there to see if they needed anything one of his other staff got there first. Before he knew it they’d finished eating and then Jennifer was heading out the door. She waved him a friendly goodbye and called out a ‘Thanks’ to him as she went. A little while after that things calmed down a bit and he took a moment to talk to Julia.

“So?” he asked.

“She’s cute,” agreed Julia.

“And?” 

“And we had a pleasant conversation,” added Julia, not wanting to supply him with all the answers too easily.

“And?” prompted Duke again.

“And she’s going back to Boston tomorrow.”

“Oh,” replied Duke, somewhat deflated.

Julia took pity on him. “I don’t think she’s evil and I don’t think she knows about the Troubles. Though I suppose if she were, and she did, and was trying to hide that she probably would have said exactly all of the same things she said tonight, but. I think she’s just a journalist from Boston trying to find out about her family and their connection to a little coastal town in Maine.”

“Right, OK. Thanks.”

“She’s coming back in the spring,” Julia added.

Something about the way she said it made Duke grin. “You gonna see her again?”

“She’s got my number,” Julia replied with a tone of finality to it that was enough to stop Duke asking for any details on that front.

“Thanks, for talking to her. I feel a bit better knowing you didn’t see anything … odd or suspicious or whatever. Somehow it’s really quite un-nerving to think that she might not be who she says, that she could know all about the Troubles, or be ... -”

“Like Audrey?” Julia asked.

Duke frowned at her, surprised. “I was going to say ‘from another world’. But …”

“She can’t be the next Audrey, the Troubles aren’t active,” reasoned Julia.

“There’s a theory that The Colorado Kid’s killer came from another world.”

“You think Jennifer’s a killer?” Julia asked, part-alarmed, part-incredulous. Jennifer did not give the appearance of murderous intent.

“Well, no, I don’t. And neither do you.” Duke sighed, trying to think it through. “I guess the idea of one mysterious woman turning up from another world every 27 years to help the town with a specific problem is one thing. The idea of multiple mysterious people turning up at all different times for no clear reason when we don’t know what their motivation or agenda is, is much less easy to deal with.”

“Makes sense,” Julia agreed. “But we just agreed Jennifer seems OK. And Howard isn’t here at the moment is he?”

“Not that I know of,” replied Duke, trying not to show his alarm at the possibility.

“So if anything it’s more likely that Jennifer has been affected by the Troubles than being the cause of them or something. Maybe her adoption is related to the Troubles but that doesn’t necessarily mean she knows anything. She might be just the kind of person you want to help.”

Duke nodded, still deep in thought. “Well, if she’s leaving town tomorrow that doesn’t seem to imply any harmful intent. Maybe we’ll just have to see what we can find out before the spring; if there’s anything in the archives about suspicious adoptions or … something,” Duke said doubtfully. “But look if you hear from her that she’s coming back, would you let me know?” Duke asked. 

Julia looked doubtful. “If she’s just a cute journalist from Boston I don’t see why I should be reporting on her movements.”

“I’m not asking for all the detail of every conversation. Just let me know if she’s going to be in town,” Duke asked. “Just so I can make sure I’m all stocked up for cheesecake,” he added with a hopeful grin.

Julia rolled her eyes again. “Fine. But if things start getting weird when she’s here I think we should tell her. About the Troubles, I mean. Maybe even before then. If she’s looking for answers about her family, that might be the information she needs. I don’t think she’s going to stop looking until she’s found some kind of explanation. It might make sense to tell her before she figures out some of the paranormal stuff for herself and goes public with it.”

That was a possibility Duke hadn’t considered before, and it gave him pause. That was the last thing they needed, a journalist nosing around Haven’s history without any idea of what was at stake. “I’ll talk to the Teagues, and Nate. We’ll have a search through the information we have, and I’ll let you know if we find anything relevant. But look, this is even more reason for us to get to know her; if we do tell her about the Troubles, she’s much more likely to believe it coming from people she knows.”

Julia nodded. “I don’t intend lying to her,” she cautioned Duke. “I mean I’m not going to tell her about the Troubles right away but I’m also not going to hang out with her just in case she’s evil. I don’t think she deserves that.”

“I’m not asking you to do anything that makes you uncomfortable. I’m not!” he insisted at her dubious expression. “Don’t hang out with her because she _might be_ evil, just hang out with her becuase she _definitely is_ cute, and fun to be around, and very impressed with your stories of Africa,” he finished with a wiggle of his eyebrows that made Julia laugh.

“Fine,” she admitted. “I’m not actually sure if I’m more her type or you, but fine. She said she’ll be back after Easter. She kind of hinted she might try and stay longer next time if she could make it into a bit of a work trip, but I got the impression the Boston Globe weren’t really up for that.”

“Of course!” Duke exclaimed with a bang of his hand against the table hard enough to make Julia jump and steady her glass of wine. “She’s a journalist! We could solve, like, three problems at once here, why did I not think of this before!!”

She looked at him questioningly but he didn’t reply. “I’ll talk to the others,” he said, somewhat cryptically. “Thanks Julia. You really helped,” he said with feeling, and kissed the top of her head on his way back to the bar.


End file.
